#if men and women are entirely separate and different than when you’re trans you must be entirely different now. to them

[shishiikura]

The “mourning your child’s old gender as if they died” phenomenon is weird but it does make more sense when you remember that many cis ppl view gender as destiny. They aren’t mourning the person like they think they are they are mourning the life they feel was determined by said persons gender assigned at birth (they view these as one in the same)

[oumakokichi]

I have a question for you about your opinions of Kaito. I've seen that you say he's homophobic and all that, but there is something about that statement that really bothers me. In his Love Suit Event, it heavily implies that Kaito not only has romantic feelings towards a very clear male rival, but also wants to win the plane race to earn the right to confess those romantic feelings. A lot of people see him as gay or bi coded, so I thought I'd ask what you thought about that.

I’ve been thinking about how to reply to this ask for a little while now, and I think I’ve finally got my thoughts all laid out. This isn’t meta, but my response will nonetheless be somewhat long, so I’ll be putting most of it under a read-more.

Anon, I’m really not sure what to tell you. Me saying that Momota has homophobic lines and behavior isn’t just my interpretation or opinion; it’s an actual fact that he does say homophobic/transphobic slurs in the game. Not in his FTEs, not in his love hotel or salmon mode, but in chapter 2 of the actual game, directed specifically at Korekiyo. The word specifically is “okama” (オカマ), and it has a very heavy and unfortunate history as a slur in Japan used predominantly against gay men and trans women, who as I’ve stated, are unfortunately often lumped together and assumed to be “the same thing” by cishet people.

I’ve had people spread misinformation about this slur, claiming that he used it in the chapter 3 trial instead and that that’s why he was being so derogatory to Korekiyo instead, but this is factually untrue. He uses this slur in chapter 2, well before Korekiyo murders anyone and before he’s revealed to be incestuous and a serial killer. And even if it were true, trying to justify the usage of homophobic and transphobic slurs with “well the person he was saying them to was a bad person so it’s okay” is a fundamentally flawed way of thinking.

It’s also a fact that he reacts with complete disgust and is horrified by even the idea of Saihara potentially coming on to him during one of his dates in salmon mode. He specifically says, “you don’t swing that way, do you!?” while using his most horrified sprite, and unlike the slur, the localization did more or less keep this line.

Again, there have been people who have tried to argue that this was simply because Momota was “sad at the idea of Saihara coming out without telling him first,” and again, this is factually untrue. Both the localization and the original Japanese dialogue of the game make it explicitly clear that he is completely grossed out at the idea of Saihara being attracted to him. This isn’t my personal interpretation or anything like that; it’s quite literally in the text.

I went and reread Momota’s love hotel to refresh my memory of the scene, and... I’m really not sure where you’re getting that he’s referring to a “very clear male rival.” He is certainly referring to a rival as his “ideal romantic partner,” but he never says anything at all about said rival’s gender. There’s absolutely nothing in the scene itself that ever specifies that he’s seeing Saihara as another guy.

In fact, for all that he talks quite enthusiastically about his rivalry with this person, he never once says any of his usual lines about “a man’s passion” or lectures about the way “men should behave.” Considering a good part of his interactions with most of the other male characters in ndrv3, not just Saihara, often involve him talking about what is or isn’t appropriate for a man (Hoshi’s suicidal tendencies are “effeminate” and unfitting for someone he looked up to, Gonta crying in the investigations is “unmanly,” etc.), I would actually say that it’s more likely he isn’t talking to another guy here, but this is just my speculation and it’s open to interpretation if nothing else.

However, it is a fact that just because Saihara is playing the part of his rival in his love hotel scene does not automatically mean that said rival “must be a guy.” Saihara plays the part of literally everyone’s ideal romantic partner in every single love hotel scene, and in most of them he’s very clearly being perceived differently than he actually appears. Hoshi, for example, is pretty clearly seeing Saihara through the lens of his dead girlfriend who he mentions in his FTEs, despite not ever explicitly referring to Saihara in his love hotel event as a man or a woman.

There’s no denying that Momota’s idea of romance is linked with passionate ideas about rivalry and competition, and that he likes grand gestures. But again, there is nothing in the text whatsoever about his rival being another man. That part is purely speculation, and nothing in the actual love hotel scene ever states that.

In my own opinion, I cannot agree with saying that a character who canonically uses homophobic slurs and reacts with open disgust to another guy coming on to him is “coded” to be gay or bisexual. Coding is the deliberate placement of subtle clues and details woven into the text to clue readers in that a character may be a certain sexuality or gender identity. With rare exceptions (like Mac from It’s Always Sunny, who by this point has been confirmed to be a gay man on the show), characters who use homophobic slurs aren’t usually “coded” to be gay or bi.

If anything, I feel that the trope of “homophobe who’s secretly a closeted gay man” does more harm than good to the LGBT community, implying that we’re responsible for the violence and prejudices used against ourselves. This trope also reassures other people whose prejudices and homophobia might be less outspoken that they’re not “really” showing any homophobic behavior or attitudes because they’re not outright saying slurs or showing their disgust, and leads them to assume that they’re not complicit.

I also feel that it’s worth pointing out that being a member of the LGBT community does not excuse anyone from homophobic or transphobic behavior, either. Having grown up in a highly conservative and deeply homophobic household, I understand perfectly well what it’s like to grow up closeted and repessed about your own sexuality. But brushing off the use of slurs directed at other people and saying that it’s okay because the person saying those slurs eventually came out is... not a great look, honestly. Even previously-closeted LGBT people still have to be held accountable for their behavior and for the harm they might have caused other people with their actions. There is no “free pass” for saying slurs to other people.

That being said, if people want to headcanon Momota as gay or bisexual, that’s an entirely different matter. Headcanons are separate from coding and are simply a matter of personal preference. Again, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to reclaim a character and actually show them growing from and apologizing for their past behavior. I can understand people who might relate to Momota’s better qualities, and who want to interpret his character in a positive way.

But it’s important in making these headcanons to not erase the fact that he did, canonically, say a homophobic slur, and to not speak over other LGBT people who are understandably uncomfortable with this fact. Just because the localization erased said slur entirely doesn’t change the intention of the original dialogue, and it doesn’t change the way Momota consistently reacts negatively to the idea of other men showing any sort of attraction to him that isn’t purely “bros being bros.”

I’m absolutely not trying to be harsh or dismissive here anon, and I hope I’ve been clear with that in my response. Again, if other people want to headcanon him as gay or bisexual because they love or relate to his character and want to see him grow from his flaws, that’s totally fine! But he’s in no way deliberately “coded” to be gay or bisexual when there are multiple instances of him having homophobic behavior in the actual, canon text.

[citrineghost]

100 Humans on Netflix

So there’s this neat Netflix Original show called 100 Humans. I immediately got interested in it because they take this group of various humans from different backgrounds, age groups, and so on, and they use them to conduct experiments to get answers to interesting questions.

So, right away I had concerns about this show because

If you know anything about data and statistical research, you know 100 people is a very small sample size and does not breed accurate results

However, I’m very curious and wanted to see what they came up with anyway. I watched all 8 episodes and, honestly, I enjoyed watching it for the most part. However, I have a LOT of issues with the show and how it was conducted and I want to list them out here.

If you’re interested in watching 100 Humans or have already watched it, please consider the following before taking any of the show’s data as fact.

100 people is a very small sample size. This is because, the more people you have, the more weight each increment in your percentages has. With 100 people, each person represents 1 entire percent. That’s a lot. That means even a few people giving incorrect answers, having off-days, or giving ridiculous results (such as you can see in the spiders georg meme), can sway the entire result of an experiment into unreasonable territory. This is why most scientific studies attempt to get data from many hundreds or even thousands of people. The bigger the sample size, the more accurate it is to the entirety of the world.

I’ll put the rest under the cut because it gets long

The 3 hosts, who I’ll refer to as the scientists (regardless of if they actually are, because I’m not sure and don’t feel like googling it) repeatedly make false statements. For example, in one episode, they told their humans to “raise your hand if you believe you’re less bigoted than the average person here,” to which 94 people raised their hands. One of the scientists then made the statement, “If that were true, it would mean only 6% of Americans are bigoted.” This statement is entirely false. The only way to actually determine a true meaning to that would be to determine at what percentage of bigotry you are considered a real bigot. You also must consider that believing you’re more bigoted than other people in a small group, who you already have an impression of, is not necessarily indicative of how you feel you measure up to America as a whole. Anyway, I could go on and on. The only way to accurately summarize the results of that question would be to say that 44% of the humans had an inflated sense of righteousness or something of the sort.

The 3 scientists, both in person and in narration, for the sake of entertainment (if that’s what you call it) continually made “jokes” that poked fun at different groups, implied men are shit, etc. Maybe that’s fun for some people, but the kind of jokes they were making to amp up the hilarity of their host personas was genuinely just uncomfortable and made me feel even more like they couldn’t be trusted to go about unbiased research.

The scientists continually drew conclusions where the results should have been labeled inconclusive

The scientists made blanket statements about certain groups based on 1 element of research that would not stand up to further evaluation. For example, when explaining that ~93% (i think it was about that number) of Americans have access to clean, drinkable, tap water and yet some large number of single use bottled waters are sold every year, one scientist said it was because people believe bottled water is safer and cleaner than tap water. I am going to do my next survey on this to see if my own perception is flawed, but I simply don’t believe that all of the people who buy bottled water do so because they think its cleaner than “tap” (as if all tap is the same.) I know there have been studies about people drinking unlabeled bottled water and tap water and not being able to tell the difference, but this neglects to account for the fact that different houses pipes can affect the taste of the tap water running through them, people can use disposable bottles of water for certain activities or events too far away from tap for people to refill their reusable bottles easily, and so so so much more. Anyway, it just really bothers me to see “scientists” making these kinds of generalizations when they’re the ones whose results we’re supposed to trust.

The show was incredibly cisnormative. There was an entire episode based on comparing men and women that made me extremely uncomfortable with its division of people by men and women. There was the implication that all men have penises and all women have vaginas. There were implications that reproduction is a necessity in picking a partner. It was just a shitshow. There was one comment by one subject who asked, when being told to separate by men and women, “What if I’m transgender?” Obviously I can’t say for sure, but this person didn’t appear to be transgender and the sort of tone it was asked in makes me think it was literally something they asked him to say in order to get inclusivity points with the viewers and to “prove” that they’re not transphobic by having them divide up, because they said to go to the side you identify with. This whole thing is a) harmful to nb folks who would not have had a side to go to and b) completely negating the fact that the way we were socialized can have an effect on our social responses. That means that for a social experiment, a trans person could sway the results of one side due to their upbringing and the pressures society put on them before/if they don’t pass. This is all assuming they had any trans people there, which is potentially debatable.  I also take issue with this entire fucking episode because just, the amount of toxicity in proving one sex is better than the others is really gross and actually counterproductive to everything feminist and progressive. Not to mention, them implying that they’re trying to support trans people only to reinforce the notion that a trans man is inherently lesser for being a man when even prior to hatching, he would have also been force fed propaganda and societal pressure implying he’s less than for supposedly being a woman is really gross and makes me angry. The point of what I’m saying is that it’s actually not woke to hate men as a way of bringing women up because there are men who are minorities who are being hurt by the rise of aggression being directed at them for their gender. Anyway enough about that.

The tests drew false conclusions because they did not account for how minorities adapt to a world that’s not made for them. This is specifically directed at the episode where subjects were asked to match up 6 people into couples. There were 3 women and 3 men and the humans were asked to put them together into pairs. they could ask the people 1 question each but then had to match them up with only that information. The truth is, the people brought in were 3 real life couples already, which the humans didn’t know until after they matched them. The couples were m/f, m/m, and f/f. I think that’s great, but the problem is, literally none of the humans asked any of them their sexuality as their question and most people didn’t even consider they could match up same-sex people. One girl even thought that they had told her to make m/f pairings, even though they didn’t.  The scientists concluded from the experiment that the humans have a societal bias toward people, and assume they’re all straight, even if they, themselves, are not straight. I personally believe that was the wrong conclusion to draw. You could see some of the queer humans were shocked that they hadn’t considered some of the pairings might be gay. But, I don’t think it’s because they believe everyone they meet is straight, I believe this says more about what they expected from the scientists themselves. If someone is in a minority and they go to do something organized, like a set of experiments, they are going to be judging the quality and setup of the experiments by those designing them. I feel that the lack of consideration that the couples might be gay has a lot more to do with queer people having adapted to a world where queers are rarely involved or included in equal volume to the cishets. The queer humans taking part in the experiment and failing to guess gay couples shows that they have adapted to a world where they are excluded rather than a belief that every random person that they meet is straight. My point is further supported by an expert they had on the show who explained that, statistically, it was entirely likely that they were all straight and that even queers will account for being minorities by going with what’s most likely. The truth is, we are surrounded by a whole lot of straight people. It makes sense to assume only 6 people are all straight and that, if any aren’t, they may be bi.

The scientists frequently broke an already small sample size into even smaller groups. The group was very frequently broken in half, in thirds, or into sets of 10 people. These sample sizes tell us almost nothing actually conclusive. 

The experiments/tests frequently were affected by peoples abilities, unrelated to what was being tested. For example, one test that was broken down into 6 people and 6 control people competing at jenga was meant to show whether needing to pee helps or hurts your focus. first of all, sample sizes of 6 are a fucking joke. Second, this completely ignores these 6 people’s actual ability to play Jenga. If someone sucks at jenga with or without needing to pee, them losing Jenga when they need to pee says exactly fuck all about whether needing to pee affected their focus. They should have tested people’s Jenga skills beforehand, counted the amount of moves they made before the tower fell, and then did it again after hours of not peeing to compare their results. This test made no logical sense at all.

The scientists ignored the social effect of subjects knowing each other as well as duration of events during their last experiment. They were testing to see if people with last names near the end of the alphabet get a shittier deal because they go last in everything where things are done by name order. They tested this by doing a fake awards ceremony where they gave out some 30 awards to people, gauging the applause to see whether the people at the end got less hype and therefore felt worse about themselves than those in the beginning who got the fresh enthusiasm of the audience. the results showed that the applause remained fairly consistent throughout the awards. The issues with this test are numerous, but here are the three I take most issue with. 1) the people here all got to know each other very well over the week it took to make the show. People who know each other and have become friends are much more likely to cheer for each other with enthusiasm, regardless of how long it’s been. On the other hand, polite applause from a crowd at, say, a graduation, where you are applauding people you don’t know, WILL start off more raucous and grow very quiet except for individual families near the end. 2) the duration of the test was a half hour, which is not very long at all and doesn’t say much to test the limits of enthusiasm. Try testing the audience at a graduation with a couple hundred graduates that also involves the time it takes to walk all the way up to a stage a hundred feet away, accept a diploma, and then wait for the next person. These kinds of events take hours and nobody keeps up their enthusiasm that long unless they’re rooting for someone in particular. 3) this study tested only one of many many ways name order affects a person. Cheering and applause is only one factor. It does not take into account people having their resumes looked at in alphabetical order and therefore people at the beginning of the alphabet being picked before anyone ever looks at a W name’s resume. It doesn’t take into account a small child’s show and tell day being at the very end of the school year, after 6 other people have brought in the same thing they planned to. No one cares about their really cool trinket because they’ve seen a bunch like it already. This test doesn’t take into account how many end-of-the-alphabet people just get straight up told, “we ran out of time. maybe next time,” when next time doesn’t really exist. I feel genuinely bad for the girl who suggested this experiment because the scientists straight up said something akin to, “lmao her theory was bs ig /shrug” even though it was their own shitty research abilities that led to their results.

They did one experiment intending to see how many people have what it takes to be a “hero.” The request for this test was made by someone curious about the effect of adrenaline and if it really works how some people say. The scientists thought it an adequate method to determine an answer by testing their reflexes with a weird crying baby sound and then dropping a doll from above while they were distracted with answering questions. The scientists looked up before the doll dropped to indicate a direction of attention. While this does give some answers about peoples intuition, reflexes, and ability to use context clues, its entirely an unusual situation, makes no sense in reality, fails to take adrenaline into consideration literally at all, and has a lot more to do with chance. The person dropping the doll literally couldn’t even drop it in the same place from person to person. Some got it dropped into their lap and others almost out of arm’s reach. This, like a few of the other mentioned experiments, was during the last episode, which felt lazy and thrown together last minute, with very little scientific basis to any of the results. The last episode was weak and disappointing overall. 

One of the big issues I have with this show is actually their repeated use of the same group. They said at the end that they had done over 40 tests. Part of doing studies is getting varied samples of people in order to get more widespread results. Using the same 100 or less people (already a tiny sample) repeatedly is a terrible research method. You’re no longer studying humans at large. You’re studying these specific humans. You can’t take the same group with the same set of inadequacies, the same set of skills, and the same set of biases and then study them extensively and in many different ways like this. Your results are inherently skewed toward these specific people and their abilities. I expected them to at least get a new group each episode - every 5 or so studies - but no. They keep the same group all week, which makes the entire season. This is inexcusable in research imo.

The next issue is contestant familiarity. The humans all getting to know each other is great, socially, but it also destroys the legitimacy of many of the studies that involve working together or comparing yourselves and your beliefs

Many tests had issues with subject dependency. One study, meant to compare age groups and their ability to work together to complete the task of putting together a piece of ready to assemble furniture had each group with members they relied on entirely. A few people built the furniture while one person sat across the room, looking at instructions with their back to the others. They had to relay the instructions through a walkie talkie to another contestant and that other contestant had to relay it to the people they’re watching build the chair. You cannot study a group’s ability to build something with instructions by the ability of one single person to communicate. You’re testing that individual and the rest of them on two completely different capabilities. One person fails at being able to communicate and everyone else becomes unable to build the furniture. Even if everyone else in the group is more effective than all the other groups at building ready to assemble furniture, they might end up falling in last because of their shitty communicator who is literally not able to convey simple instructions. (yes, this actually happened in the test)

One test judged the subjects at their speed of getting ready, to see if men or women are faster at getting ready. While most elements of this test were just fine, the part I took issue with was that they did this test without regard to social convention. They told the subjects they were going on a field trip and to get ready by a certain time. Then, they gave them many things to get distracted by, like refreshments to pack with them, a menu to preorder lunch from, and so on.  The part that upsets me about this test is that they ignored social convention entirely, to the point that subjects were judged based on their conventional actions and expectations more than their actual speed at getting ready. The buses promptly shut their doors and left at the time they were supposed to but there was no final call to get on the buses. In general, when a group is to be taken somewhere by bus, there will be an announcement to load up and leave. You could clearly see many of the subjects were ready to go and were just standing around talking while they waited for fellow subjects to finish getting ready. I have no doubt that, if given a final call, most of them would have loaded up within a couple minutes. However, they were relying on the social convention of announcing departure and were therefore, left behind entirely (for a nonexistent field trip). These people who were left behind were counted as being late and not making the time cutoff. If one were to look at the social element of this situation, if everyone there believed there would be a warning before departure, the fact that 24 to 14 women to men were loaded onto the buses at departure doesn’t necessarily indicate the women were faster to get ready. It seems to me that it’s more likely to indicate anxiety at being late and a belief that they need not impede on anything lest they be reprimanded or have social consequences for taking too long - something women are frequently bullied for. There’s also the chance that many who boarded without final call are more introverted or antisocial. Plus, we can’t forget to include the people who have anxiety about seating. If someone is overweight, has joint pain, or has social anxiety, they will be more likely to board early to get a seat they feel comfortable in. If they had counted up all of the people socializing and waiting on the sidewalks nearby, they may have found that there were more men who were ready to board up at a moment’s notice. I’m not saying I think men are faster to get ready, I’m just saying that we can’t know based on who boarded without a final call. If people believe they will have a last minute chance to board, a large number of them will take the last few minutes to socialize with their new friends until they’re told they have to board. Therefore, this test cannot be considered conclusive without counting and including the people who were ready and not boarded as a third subset.

Honestly, I could go on and on about how sensationalist and unscientific this show is, but I just don’t have 6 more hours to contribute to digging up every single flaw with it. There’s A Lot.

My point is, if you feel like watching this show, which I don’t necessarily discourage inherently, I just beg you to go into it with a critical eye. Enjoy the fun of it and the social aspects, but please don’t rely on the information provided and please don’t spread it as fact, because it’s not.

It’s entertainment, not science.

[catharsis-in-a-bottle]

ALL MY THOUGHTS ON GENDER:

A brain dump / essay-ish thing

Hello, dear humans! I had no particular inspiration for this massive chunk of text beyond “it’s late and there are thoughts in my little human brain.” And so here are all my current thoughts on gender - all of the thoughts that I can... think of... at least. Disclaimer: much of this is speculation and personal opinion. This isn’t a research essay. This is a brain dump. These are thoughts that have been shit out of my head, tidied up, and sprayed with perfume; proceed, therefore, with a critical mind.

There arises a thought, and likely a rather common one among those who think about gender on a regular basis. What if this heap of gender baggage - the expected appearance, personality, and occupation of a given sex - did not exist? What if people disregarded genitalia in favor of raising all sexes with the same status quo, or perhaps even without expressional expectations?

My question is: what, then, would become of gender dysphoria? If the differences between men and women in society were not so heightened - if the existence of nonbinary people was something normalized... I don’t think I would be dysphoric. My mind would be nonbinary - as gender itself is possibly an intrinsic part of neurology, whereas the gender baggage (roles and expectations) is socially constructed - my mind would be nonbinary, but there wouldn’t be an ideal body to ‘transition’ to. So what would I do? The only difference now would be biological sex. And perhaps, for some, this alone is enough for incongruence and/or dysphoria.

And if all sexes were raised not only equally, but better yet encouraged to express themselves as they wished - how might the face of the earth be changed? In terms of fashion, form-fitting clothing would not be made only to accentuate “feminine” curves. Maybe it would simply accentuate *human* curves and features. If the only recognized differences between sexes were natural physical appearances and roles in reproduction, and we DID NOT create gender roles to accommodate those roles in reproduction... Our world, the products we create, the ways we act... everything could be very, very different.

This imagined world is, of course, an unlikely outcome of our societal evolution. In the animal kingdom, different sexes are assigned different roles and jobs. Why should humans be any different? The task of physical labor to men arises from the sole biological factor of higher potential muscle mass - and in our prehistory, that muscle mass was real. Everyone was working hard as hell in the fight for survival.

And so the differences in sexes grew and grew. With a gap in the jobs they were expected to perform based on their reproductive and physical capabilities, societally recognized men and woman drifted apart. And as humankind grew, these differences were portrayed in wildly different ways in differently developing cultures. So in our prehistory, there were hunters and gatherers, caretakers and fighters; but in the beautifully diversifying cultures developing across the globe, the gender baggage differed. Ideas of femininity, masculinity, neutrality, and combination of expression were quite different as one moved from place to place. In western culture, neutrality was rejected and stomped upon, while in many non-western cultures, neutrality, ambiguity, and overall third genders received their own baggage and thrived in the gender arena (which is now a term, thank you very much.)

Gender expression and gender roles were socially constructed. But what of gender itself? What is gender? We say it’s a personal identity, what’s in our minds and hearts. Is it neurological? If so, that would explain gender incongruence at the base level - feeling that incongruence based solely upon one’s sex. If not, if gender itself is in fact entirely social construct and not just the baggage, what of transness? What would it mean to be trans? That’s not my place to answer, because I don’t know and all of these rhetorical questions are sheer speculation. Whether or not gender is an intrinsic, neurological part of our individual selves, trans people still exist.

And not only do trans people exist, but we deserve to live as the height of our true personal expression. Freedom is so fucking important. Speaking your mind and being yourself and showing the world, or showing a loved one, or knowing and loving who you are - this is all freedom, this is all personal expression. For trans people it is emancipation and liberation from the shackles of all of that gender baggage. In one way or another, gender differs from biological sex, and the sheer difference in what each gender is supposed to do, present as, act as - that difference is what feels so absolutely, goddamn confining. If we returned to my unrealistic little scenario in which we somehow suppressed the evolution of gender baggage, the societal confinement would not exist. It would be biological confinement. And who knows what that would entail; certainly not I, a non-omnipotent little Homo sapiens.

Being a woman and having society tell you you’re a man is confining. Being a man and having society tell you you’re a woman is confining. Being nonbinary and having cultures in which that is simply *not historically a thing* tell you that “you’re whatever’s in your pants” is confining. In my own personal experience in western society, this enby confinement is different than that of binary confinement, as a neutral role - a good old nonbinary baggage suitcase - is a new thing. Nonbinary PEOPLE are not new; a nonbinary suitcase (I love making terms up) is new though, once again illustrating the difference between the gender baggage and gender itself. The struggle of nonbinary people is not to be compared to that of binary trans people, as it is a separate category. They are related but not the same. Binary trans people push against gender baggage that has developed, evolved, and existed for centuries; nonbinary trans people are making a new category (in cultures in which that isn’t a defined gender role). And we don’t necessarily want to create any more ‘baggage’ for nonbinary people, as once again this is what causes that suffocating feeling of confinement within society.

Xenogenders are sort of similar in this sense - an entirely new category is surfacing. At first I did not understand them. But not understanding something is never a basis for disrespect. I don’t know the people identifying as xenogenders, and I don’t know how they feel or what their personal struggles are, so who am I to say “ahahaha trender”? Their existence does not affect me. “But they make the trans community look like a joke.” Well, people with xenogenders are not the face of the trans community, and those who think they are simply cherry-pick the “cringiest” examples in a varied community that they can find, which is already shitty in itself. And also, the problem is not “trenders”. The problem is people with already transphobic mindsets, whether that be passively transphobic or actively transphobic. That mindset is just being extended to this emerging group of people. I don’t give a shit if someone uses neopronouns or describes themself using a neogender, because I do not know them and their existence does not affect me negatively in any way, nor does it affect the trans community negatively. By simply their identity, they are not hateful or discriminatory. And so what trans people should really be fighting against is passive and active transphobia within society - the actual, real life problem. We shouldn’t be turning inwards and setting our own dogs loose on each other.

Here we are in the world. Femininity, masculinity, neutrality and ambiguity have become established fashion codes and expressional standards in my good ol’ western society. Occupational gender roles still exist heavily, because that’s literally an intrinsic part of our evolution as humans, but these occupational roles are being fought against. Which is due, because anything otherwise would be archaic and non-progressive. Personality and personal expression are still heavily scrutinized when differing from one’s own assigned gender. The latter is an issue; the fashion codes and expressional standards have their deep problems, such as violence on the basis of expression, but once femininity, masculinity, neutrality, and ambiguity have been extended and allowed to all genders and socially accepted, these issues should fade. It’s sad that we must base the resolution of violence on social acceptance. But we must push for this social acceptance. We must push for the elimination of confinement, and for the absolute freedom of personal expression for all people; once real, true freedom of expression becomes normalized, becomes the status quo, it will no longer be met with challenge and hate.

That’s one thing we want deeply in life. To exist as we wish to exist without challenge and hate.

That concludes my... words. I hope that entire thing could be perceived as relatively orderly. I encourage you to leave your thoughts in the notes or ask a question or whatever you want to do.

[im-the-punk-who]

Idk if ur the right person to send this to so feel free to ignore if you aren't but I'm beginning to realize that I might be a trans guy after years of thinking I'm enby and I'm really struggling with that? I've received a lot of the messages over the years about how men are bad and violent and I've also experienced a lot of gender based violence before I was out. I know intellectually that there's nothing wrong with manhood and yet I'm still really struggling. Idk do you have any thoughts on learning to accept your own manhood

Okay! Sorry this took a few days to answer but this is...definitely still a complicated thing for me, too.

First off I wanna say that whether you end up identifying as a binary trans man or somewhere in between that and nonbinary, that is very cool and valid and all of this can apply no matter where on the spectrum of masculinity you ultimately end up falling.

I saw a post which explains the basic thesis of what I'm gonna say, which is that your gender does not equal your morality. 

Tumblr in particular really likes to go hard on the misandry and it can be really hard not to internalize that. Especially when it comes in the form of so many jokes, and especially especially when some of it does line up with experiences you’ve had. The biggest thing to realize, is that just *being a man* doesn't make you inherently violent or toxic or bad. All of the things that Tumblr and feminism in general tends to equate to “being a man = bad” are things that are learned or encouraged over time, no matter how much terfs like to insist they are traits inherent in being born with a y chromosome. 

(And yes, these misandry arguments ALL have their basis in gender essentialism and in arguing why trans people can’t exist.)

As this relates to trans men, it becomes akin to walking a tightrope our entire lives. In both society at large and LGBT spaces we're made to fit as close as possible into gender norms to avoid violence or oppression(or the insistence we’re really just lesbians or self-hating cishets). But we also have first hand experience of the ways in which men are *socialized* to behave being harmful and don’t want to perpetuate them and be labeled a ‘bad person’. So we have to constantly walk this line of, I suppose trying to act manly enough while also trying not to cause waves (And, AS A NOTE, does that sound eerily similar to the argument most feminists say is purely a feminine experience? Is it almost like the very system that seeks to free cis women through hatred of men perpetrates those exact same systems onto other marginalized communities?)

And I will say, this is something I still struggle with. A lot. It's not going to be something you can take a magic pill for and never have to worry about again. I started transitioning almost a decade ago and I'm still trying to find the balance. Cis men can spend their *whole lives* trying to find that balance. I know quite a few - in case it feels like this is a purely trans experience. Reckoning with the way that male privilege has socialized men to harm at the same time radical feminism has socialized everyone it can that all men intentionally cause harm is a universal experience among men who are aware of it. 

It's not easy, and I guess just...if you feel like you're struggling on that front as you continue your gender journey(Laynie i hate you i hate you i hate you) try to remind yourself that you're not alone. And that what you’re fighting against is a systemic socialization, not something inherent in yourself. You’re going to screw up - that doesn't make you a bad person or a bad man.

I listen a lot to Brene Brown. 

I know people are probably sick of hearing me talk about her, but she is a shame researcher who honestly helped me a LOT in realizing why I was feeling so bad about parts of my personality or my gender expression. She’s excellent. If you find you’re having a lot of trouble reckoning with being this thing you have perceived as bad for a very long time, I highly recommend listening to some of her ted talks and other speeches. Most of them are on youtube. 

For a long time I was trying to base my gender off of what I thought people would love. I went over the top, dressed in popular styles, was WAY more feminine than I actually feel, and tried to make myself as unassuming as possible - in part because of childhood trauma but also because I was genuinely ashamed to be a man(particularly a gay man) because I had internalized the idea that men - especially gay men - were woman-haters. (And, because I hated *myself* as a woman, I thought that I also hated women, and I thought that I must be one of those Bad Gays.)

But once I stopped trying to do that? Once I was like ‘no I’m actually a gay-up man’ and stopped berating myself for not liking my feminie body and hating the parts of myself that I didn’t identify with but felt forced to perform? Once I started looking at what made *me* happy and not other people? It became so much easier to not feel those things. 

SO I guess, what I’m saying is that the best way to deal with internalized misandry is to try to forgive yourself, and recognize that the things that men perpetrated against you and that people say are ‘toxic male traits’ are not *inherent* to being a man. They are things that are taught to men(both cis and trans) by society. And also that like, these are also things that are not just inherent to men. Any toxic trait that a man exhibits a woman can too - and yeah there’s a discussion about how the general power imbalance between men and women makes it less likely a woman would cause as much damage but honestly? If you’re on tumblr you’re most likely in female dominated spaces where arguably that isn’t true, especially with the number of fucking TERFS on this website. 

Also....you do not inherit cismale privilege just by identifying as a man. No matter how far you take your transition, you are *always* going to be at a different level of privilege from a cisman. Even if you transition as far as you are able to right now and live and pass as a cisman for the rest of your life, you are not a cisman and that is going to affect how you move through the world.

(That doesn’t mean you are not a *man* because you are not cis, btw. Just that there are things that cismen don’t have to worry about that are going to affect your life - things like ovarian cancer, breast cancer, hormonal dependence, corrective abuse, medical shortages, physical differences that out transpeople - there are a hundred things that trans men have to experience throughout their lives that cismen are never, ever going to deal with. And yes, this goes for transwomen / cis women as well.)

Something that helped me become comfortable living as a man was to look at specific traits of the men in my life. Why did I feel comfortable around this man, but not others, what red flags physically or emotionally did this behavior set off in me? And then focusing on those specific *behaviors* rather than the men themselves. If you can separate the individual traits from an overarching idea of 'manhood' that might be helpful in feeling like you can inhabit manhood without being toxic. 

Basically, my best advice is to tell yourself that what makes you a man does not make you inherently toxic. In fact what makes *all* men, men, does not make them inherently toxic. Men are not trash just because they’re men, and the fight against misandry *is* a fight for marginalized people. It hurts transmasculine people in exactly the ways you are hurting. No matter what TERFs say - no matter what male-critical or whatever they’re calling themselves to not have to call themselves TERFs say - men are not born evil, or bad, or trash. 

Toxic masculinity is a learned behavior. It is not something you are given the day you start identifying as a man, and it is not something you have to perpetuate. 

Calling it anything else does a disservice to everyone who identifies as masculine of center but especially trans men, who have to reckon with this exact knowledge that in affirming who they are, certain people are going to hate them and call them monsters and tell them they are trash and unworthy of loving without hurting. 

And that shit just isn’t true. It isn’t fucking true! Men are not toxic just because they are men, and you are not a bad person just because you are a transman. That’s, I suppose, the best advice I can offer you. I hope it helps, and I also just want to reiterate that I hope you find affirmation in whatever you end up deciding. <3 <3 <3

[transamorousnetwork]

Letters@The Transamorous Network

Editor’s note: In this series, we’ll highlight conversations with our readers/viewers. We think folks will benefit from these conversations. All names are made up to protect everyone’s privacy. This particular exchange we are sharing because we strongly believe the narrative expressed by the writer has value for trans-attracted men, as well as transgender women who are capable of being compassionate towards women impacted by men struggling with their trans attraction. Trans attraction is serious business and is NOT A FETISH. It has long-term impacts for everyone involved. We at The Transamorous Network understand this and have compassion not only for the men, but for the women (both trans and cis) impacted by their short- and long-term decisions.

SECOND WARNING: This exchange contains material that may be highly offensive and triggering for transgender people. We strongly suggest that if you are triggered by content that may be perceived by you as invalidating or erasure, you should NOT read the following.

"My wife never measured up because she couldn’t. She wasn’t trans."

How fucking sad this statement is. Do you have any idea how much this destroys the woman who tries to measure up? To the man dressed as a woman and her husband who cannot admit his sexuality.

Forgive me, but I resent these men who want to call themselves women. Maybe my resentment is displaced for my husband whose attraction to these men dressed as women has utterly destroyed my self-esteem.

I’m not sure where to place my anger – for these men who are GAY and dress/transform into women so they can be with men OR for these men who are GAY who enjoy being with men who dress/transform as women but are confused by their sexuality and attempt to live a “straight” life.

My husband and his denial have utterly ruined my self-esteem as a woman and wasted a good amount of my life to be in a genuine relationship. I am angry, hurt and frankly bitter towards the porn industry that introduced him to these men. My life is destroyed and my heart is broken.

Meena

Hi Meena

I understand your resentment, your anger and frustration. I also understand your unacceptance of the people for whom your husband is attracted to.

How did you come to this website? What were you searching for? If you’ve looked around our content, you’ll notice something (although this may be extremely hard to hear from where you currently are): your self-esteem isn’t ruined, although I know to you it feels that way. At the same time, since you believe that it is, it is true for you: your self-esteem is ruined.

But it’s also not.

Just because you believe it is ruined doesn’t mean that truth is objectively real, like separate from your thoughts. You can have a quite-intact self esteem AND, believe it or not, still love your husband, even though you two may no longer be together.

I get though how that feels so out of reach right now.

There’s another reality in which you both have gone on your individual way, and along those paths both of you are happy. No resentment, no bitterness. Everyone happy.

Someday that will be your truth. But I get that right now, it’s not.

TTN

Dear TTN

Thank you for your thoughtful response. Forgive me but I think it is easy for you to respond in this way because you are living on the other side of the coin. While you talk about your wife in this article, do you really know how deeply this affected her?

Is it easier to brush it away as incompatibility or just both parties are happy now. I really think this is a delusion to help men (like you and my husband) to feel ok about the choice you have made. After nearly 20 years of marriage, I am devastated. I truly believe that my entire marriage has been a sham and that i must not be pretty enough, feminine enough or good enough. Your response makes you feel better for the choices you have made. I believe my husband is a COWARD who destroyed my life and self-esteem in order to live a facade of a life he thought he should.

So, I’m supposed to be ok because now he has found himself and can be in an authentic relationship. I think this is what you guys tell yourselves to make yourselves feel better for the TRUE women that you destroy. We are left in your aftermath to pick up the pieces and try to put our lives back together and find some sense of worth again.

I found your site after searching up the issue in a desperate attempt to find understanding and comfort at the sham of my last 20 years.

My only response to both you and my husband is I hope it was worth it. I hope denying your attraction at the expense of another human being and destroying that person so you could be with your transsexual [SIC] was worth it. I hope it was worth it that i became suicidal. I hope it was worth it that are children now live in a broken home. I hope it was worth it that I now require anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications in order to function. God, I hope my peace of mind and life were worth it.

Meena

Hi again Meena,

Rather than replying at length here, I would like to offer this: let’s talk on the phone or via Skype or Zoom where we can see one another or at least hear one another. I know that were we to talk in real time, you might find enormous relief from these feelings you’re experiencing and the actual physically real experiences you’re having.

It’s not an attempt to silence you here in the comments section. As you see, I’ve posted your comments verbatim, immediately and unedited. It’s more that, despite what you’re claiming here, I really do understand what’s happening with you and with my ex-wife and with your former husband. And, it could be helpful for you if we shared that knowledge together in real time.

This is a fee offer Meena. And I’m willing to talk with you as long as or as many times as needed.

Perry

Hi Perry,

Thank you for responding to my comment and the offer to talk with me via phone/skype/etc. I apologize for posting my comments on your site and appreciate your thoughtful and compassionate responses.

I don't wish to talk with you at this time as I am under the care of an AASECT (American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists) and am currently working on keeping myself safe. I am fearful that talking with you may push me further towards my self-destructive behaviors. At this time, I am working under a contract with her so I don't need to be hospitalized for my suicidal ideation. Please forgive me, but I believe talking to you would only further my desire to find quiet and peace in my mind.

My husband's lies and betrayal have frankly devestated me and sense of safety and security. I may find forgiveness for him eventually but right now I am simply working on surviving for myself and my children each day. I fear talking to you about this issue will only validate my feelings of worthlessness - as you are like my husband and have given up your marriage for someone you found better and more attractive.

I don't see where you could bring me any comfort. I wish you and your dating network all the best and hope you find success - hopefully not at the expense of other human beings.

Meena

Hi Meena,

I think you’re presuming what my intentions are, and that’s ok. I only know that I could help you find peace and calm, mental and emotional clarity and then empowerment pretty much immediately. That’s why I was offering. Conversing with me wouldn’t “push you towards more destructive behaviors”, instead, it could quite quickly reconnect you with your feelings of empowerment, security and knowing; the exact opposite of what you have expressed as a fear.

But I understand where you are, not because I’m trans-attracted and divorced, but because I understand other things you and I (and everyone else) shares.

Just so you know, I didn’t leave my wife because I found a trans woman. My wife divorced me because she found other men she preferred. It was a great move on her part and I don’t blame her or vilify her for her choices. And no, I currently am not with a trans woman. I prefer to focus on my growing enterprises.

Hopefully this provides the clarity it was meant to offer. The offer I made earlier still stands should you ever choose to act on it.

As for your comments on The Transamorous Network, you don’t have to apologize at all because your comments, as painful as they may have been to share, will help more people than you know as they seek their own understanding and freedom in the new reality we all find ourselves in.

Be well Meena.

Perry

Dear Perry,

Thank you for your kind and compassionate response. I feel that you are a very caring and empathetic person who is trying to help me.

I'm not sure I am in a place to find empowerment.  I have an 18 year marriage that is a sham.  I have been married to a man who was sexually attracted to something other than what I can offer.  We have struggled with sex for 18 years  - he always claimed a lower libido that me - and I am so stupid that I tried for so long to try to be what he said he wanted and liked.  I discovered his transattraction early in our marriage and I allowed him to convince me that it was just a fetish and that his primary attraction was to cis-gender women.  After all this time and recently discovering some sexting activity on his part (while recovering from breast cancer none the less - but who needs real breasts when your husband prefers the implants attached to a body with a penis), I realize I have been in denial because I love him and he is the father of my children. He wants to be with a tranny - though he says he never has had sex with one - but at different times in his life he has met ones he found attractive.  

Never the less, as a cisgender woman, I can tell you that transsexual women maintain a certain masculinity that is extremely obvious to real women (because they are NOT real women) - no matter how much surgery or hormones they have had.  As a result of being married to a man who is transattracted, I have begun to worry as a CISGENDER FEMALE - are my features masculine?  Do I look like a tranny? Is that why he was attracted to me?  Do other people think I look like a man dressed as a woman? I have lost all sense of self-confidence and esteem as a woman as well as my sense of safety and security.

I think it is easy for you to chalk this up to well, both parties can now be happy.  He can be with a transsexual and I can be - I don't know - because I can't imagine that another human being would want to be with me - (i must look like a tranny and my husband of 18 years is attracted to MEN  - albeit dressed like women with breast implants and a shit ton of make-up).  Right now, I see no happy solution to this.  I am so glad you can find the sunshine and rainbows in this.  I'm sorry but after 18 years of marriage, this is destruction of another human being because he is too macho to admit to himself, his friends or family that he likes men who dress as women!  I found your site in a desparate attempt to understand and frankly, reassure me that he actually does just have a fetish and truly is into REAL women.  Your site only confirmed my worst nightmare. I am lost and devastated.  

You can keep your site going and kid yourself that all will be well for men who are into trannies and destroy their marriages in order to indulge in this sexual fetish.  And frankly, it will - despite all the women it destroys and leaves in the aftermath.    How could you really make a difference?  Save two lives? You should focus your efforts on younger men who are struggling to understand themselves - before they enter into a heterosexual relationship - and help them enter into relationships for their TRUE nature.  This would save so much destruction and possibly some lives.  You see, the only people who come out on top in this scenario are the men you help to find their TRUE authentic nature and marry, date or have sex with trannies all the while destroying those women who have committed to them and thought they had a husband who loved them.  

I apologize for my hostility and anger - I am still searching for peace and answers - and your site has provided me with a horrible ugly truth that is very hard for me to accept.  I kept searching for answers that lead down a different path - one that confirmed my marriage, confirmed that I hadn't married a man who preferred to be with MEN, confirmed that I am an attractive, desirable and worth while woman deserving of a relationship and not some pathetic hideous woman who can serve as as a facade/sham for a man who truly is into MEN.

I thank you again for your compassionate response to me - as I know my thoughts and ideas are very attacking of your entire endeavor.  

My only hope is that my pain might help save someone from this horrible experience and ultimately save their life.

Meena

We offered Meena a free live engagement to help her. To date, she has not responded.

This exchange shows how serious this is for everyone involved. If you're trans attracted and feel shame and embarrassment about this natural part of you, we encourage you to consider this: the sooner you come into owning who you are, the better off everyone will be.

That being said, stories people tell create their reality. Often "stories people tell" blind them to their own intuition, which is always accurate. As you can see in Meena's experience, several times her intuition led her to evidence in response to her questions, which came in the form of suspicion. Instead of listening to her knowing, she told stories which caused her to ignore her knowing.

Everyone is a match to the partner they are with. In other words, it always takes two.

Whenever a person ignores answers they receive, and everyone always receives answers they seek, such answers will get bigger – more intense, harder to ignore – until the person "gets it". By then, a lot of cleaning up may be required.

It's possible to avoid all this. If you're in a long-term relationship or marriage, or you're contemplating marrying a cis-woman, but you are trans attracted, we urge you to consider the significance of your choices.

And, at the same time, it takes two. Meena's struggle reflects her husband's struggle as both create one another through stories they tell.

Find out more. We are available to everyone.

[transmedicalism-for-beginne-blog]

Transmedicism Rant:

Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders- Fifth Addition, or the DSM-5 States that "GENDER is used to denote the public (and usually legally recognized) lived role as a boy or girl, man or woman, but, in contrast to certain social contructionist theories biological factors are seen as contributing, in interaction with social & psychological factors, to gender development."

--

Couple things to note here.

1) Biology influences Gender.

2) Look at that nice little fuck you to the social sciences in their sentence.

3) "boy or girl" "man or woman" There's only two genders, who would have guessed.

"But wait, what about "Gender Identity" ?"

Well the DSM-5 states; "GENDER IDENTITY is a category of social identity & refers to an individual's identification as male, female, or some other category other than male or female."

There you go Tucutes a nice label for y'all to use. "Gender Identity is a Social construct while Gender is a mix." (Sarcasm)

So, why the fuck is this important?

This distinction is a real issue Now because, Tucutes & MOGAI are trying to pressure the American Psychiatric Association, or the APA to remove the Mental Illness label from Gender Dysphoria, and this isn't because the condition doesn't fit the definition of mental illness it's because, of Tucutes/MOGAI putting their feelings before facts. Just in case anyone is confused. Mental Illness =/= (Doesn't mean/equal) it's made up, or pyschological. People suffer from cronic depression because, of a chemical imbalance in their brain, So despite the counter intuitive name, it doesn't mean it’s made up.

So, the problem is by attempting to cement this idea that Gender is entirely social into the minds of the masses, they're implying that anything under the label Transgender, Is Social. Except it's NOT.

Gender Dysphoria is Biological.

Transgender doesn't only mean "people that want to transition" i.e. ftm men & mtf women. Transgender is an incredibly broad label, that everyone has a somewhat different definition for.

The APA, the people who write the DSM & all of its additions, State;

"TRANSGENDER - the broad spectrum of individuals who transiently or permanetly identify with a gender different from their natal gender."

So that includes people:

- With Gender Dysphoria

- Who are Gender Non-Conforming

- Who are "Genderq^eer"

- and all that other bs ( the MOGAI "genders")

AND THAT'S THE PROBLEM.

We have evidence that Gender Dysphoria is a biological & neurological condition, but

we don't yet have evidence that any of the MOGAI "genders" has any sort of biological basis.

In fact the Tucute/MOGAI community completely miss that point completely by CREATING their own distinction between Sex & Gender. So, that they don't n e e d a biological basis.

My purpose in saying all this is that Gender Dysphoria should NOT be in the same category as MOGAI “genders” Gender Dysphoria has biological evidence. MOGAI “genders” do not. Gender Dysphoria is a mental disorder. MOGAI "genders" are not. Not a medical mental disorder at least. (lol.)

Having a biological & medical disorder lumped in with all that other stuff is creating too much fucking confusion.

And, Yes I said disorder. Because, if you were born with a condition, that you have no control over, that makes you 'feel like you were born in the wrong body, or the wrong sex/gender' & this feeling is so debilitating it causes you untold ammounts of stress, discomfort, and most the time depression, that's a disorder. Mechanically that's obviously not supposed to be the way the brain works, because if it was, humans would've never made it past prehistoric times.

"But, Alec, why is it so important that it retains the Mental Illness label? That just makes people feel bad?!?"

It's important because it changes how the Medical Community treats the issue. As Blarie White once said, " Why can't we do both, though. That's like saying, that um, you can simultaneously fight for people to be kind to Autistic people and also look for a cure. How about we do both. That'd be great. Because, actually insisting on this accepting people, and to just don't worry about it because, “everything's normal, everything's fine”; It actually leads to political correctness, which leads to no research being put into a cure. Which exacerbates all the suffering." (Her response to, "We can't support trans people and a cure at the same time.)

I don't agree that just because we don't currently have such a miracle pill, or maybe even something close to that, that doesn't mean we as a society should deny the Medical Reality and not continue research in that area. You're arguing Secondary reasons when agreeing with this, Not Primary reasons. You're arguing against the Medical illness label not necessarily because, on its face it shouldn't be labled as such but, because of a precieved secondary effect of; Some people can justify being biggoted or can make individuals feel real bad. Which I understand, I get the dog whistle concern here. However, that's not going to help medical treatment in the long run.

"But, Alec. There's people who want to transition but, don't have dysphoria!@?!!"

AND THAT IS WHY IT'S SO IMPORTANT TO SEPARATE GENDER DYSPHORIA FROM MOGAI "GENDERS"

Because, all the research on Transsexuals, (and for the record I'm going to start using the term Transsexual to refer to individuals who were born with Gender Dysphoria (a biolgical condition.) to distant it from the MOGAI "genders". ) All the research we have are of people with Gender Dysphoria, Because the idea that there are even people who believe they were born the wrong sex/gender BUT, don't have dysphoria is relatively NEW.

So, it hasn't been studied. We don't even know if it's a biological condition or a pyschological one.

Unfortunately, We don't yet have a biolgical/medical test to determine whether someone has gender dysphoria. We don't yet have a biological way of measuring what someones innate Gender or “Gender Identity” is, or what ever the fuck MOGAI & Tucutes are calling it.

We do have evidence that it is indeed innate BUT, not a clear "let's scan your Brain to see if you have Gender Dysphoria. That is, Biological Gender Dysphoria. NOT a pyschological issue that makes you think you're transgender.

Another reason why the distiction needs to be made so clear.

People who have purely pyschological reasons for wanting to be the opposite gender ( or MOGAI "genders") should NOT being using biological hormones & physical surgery. Those options should only be for people that have a biological & neurological condition. People who use feelings towards their gender do not have the ability to be transient ( to change )

"But, Alec. It sounds like you're talking about Trans-Regret. That's a tiny number of cases and a dog whistle for Transphobia!!?"

SHUT YOUR FUC--

Supposedly Trans-Regret is not common. I say supposedly because, I haven't done research into that yet. Cause' it's not a direct correlation to what I am talking about now. Regret could be very low now but, as Blaire White once said, " This is a very new phenomenon. There are no long term studies that show a person 30/40 years old, that had transitioned at 12/13 & how their life ended up. It's just never happened, it's all still very new."

Because, until recently the stigma against transsexual people was so high that it would be very uncommon for someone who only has a pyschological complex to go through the transitioning process.

However, Because we are living in F U T U R E W O R L D O F 2019 society has become far more accepting of Transsexual people. Which is good and the way it should be, BUT it does also mean that it would be more likely for people who are only psychologically "trans" or Gender Non-Conforming, to be confused with people who have a biological & neurological condition.

The DSM and all it's addtions are supposed to be a guide book to help doctors make a distinction between someone who actually has gender dysphoria someone who does not. Biological VS Physiological.

" But, Alec. I just read the DSM's criteria of Gender Dysphoria, and there is nothing specifically in it about making this distinction between biological VS pyschological???"

Yes, and that's because psychiatry (APA) looks at stuff through primarily a biological lens. So, they are operating under assumption of if you don't have a biological reason for something, then you don't have it. Combine that with the fact that this current societal focus on understanding Transgender issues, is NEW, and the DSM-5 was written before that & this creates a problem. Since we don't yet know how to create a definitive biological test, We can only rely on Self-Reporting & Observable behaviors. Which is why it is so problematic. Doctors have to somehow navigate this complicated maze to figure out whether someone actually has gender dysphoria or is just Gender Non-Conforming, or going through a phase/MOGAI "genders". This is why Transsexual people feel like they have to go through so many hoops, and all this MOGAI stuff is only making the issue more confusing for everyone. Which means, you're making it harder for doctors to figure this shit out. Which means, more hoops.

Now let me make myself clear I'm not blaming the Trans movement or even suggesting that it must go away because "tHeY're cOnfUsIng tHe cHilDRen!1!!"

There's no hidden dog whilstle in what I am saying, I am only stating what is the reality of the situation and Unfortunately because our society, until recently, has been very biggoted for years aginast certain individuals that don't fit into specific gender roles, the Tucute Trans community is incredibly sensitive to anything that can even remotely be perceived as an attack. Which I understand. However, the problem is when ever people go under intensive physical treatment for a condition, it’s the Medical community and even society's duty to make sure that an individual really requires that treatment because, having medical treatments that are either 'over prescribed', or turned out horrible have littered our history from blood letting, to shock treatment, to even staring at the sun for health reasons, & we can't forget about lobotomy. Even now, there are concerns of kids being over prescribed Adderall & Riddilen*, Which is basically speed. Not to mention all the people with pain killer addictions. Being prescribed things you don't need can lead to messing with how your body and brain functions. That's why its important, although difficult, to put our emotions aside when dealing with these medical issues to avoid the Medical pitfalls that we humans have fallen into time, & time again.

Or just take everything I just said as merely "a dog whilstle" for Transphobia because I'm actually "a hateful biggot."

"Even if you're not a Transphobe Alec, you keep making this distinction between biological and pyschological, Assuming doctors can even untangle these 'interlinked concepts'. Why should a person, who only has gender dysphoria psychologically not be allowed to Transition????"

Because, If your 'gender dysphoria' is purely pyschological, that means that “Gender Dysphoria” you’re experiencing is a SYMPTOM of another problem. It's not the problem itself. Allow me to give you a very over simplified example.

Lets look at Game of Thrones, Cersei Lannister, on several occasions has stated that she wishes she was born a male. Lets say there was some magic potion in G.O.T. that she could take to change her sex. You better believe she would drink it but, reason for this is not because, she has Gender Dysphoria. Its not because, she has some innate feeling of being born in the wrong body/gender/sex. The reason is because she exist in a world where her biological sex/gender limits her ability to get power. Which is her primary goal. So, her complex for not being a male is secondary, it's a means to an end. The doctors evaluating whether or not someone has gender dysphoria needs to concentrate on making sure the underlying problem is that the person feels that they are born the wrong gender because, they simply are. Something biologically innate. Not that they were born the wrong gender, because they develop a negative pyschological complex about what means to be their birth gender, or a negitive pyschological complex about a specific body part that just so happens to be a body part realted to biological sex because, an issue like that is transient and can be revolved through other means.

"Fuck you Alec, that Game of Thrones expamle was shit. It's far more complicated!!1!"

Yes, real life is more complicated.

So let me give you a more grounded example. While simultaneously criticizing the DSM & all of its additions. So far I have been seemingly deflating the DSM which maybe makes you believe that I think the DSM is some h o l y b o o k. The literal word from g o d. I don't and it's not. It has some very serious flaws in my opinion. One of those flaws is in the creitiera of gender dysphoria. Right now, and adolescent female could be going through puberty; the time her chest starts growing, & if you happen to be this female or simply talk to someone about their experience you will find that many of those individuals actually had a quite negative experience with it when they were adolescent.

One such story that has always stood out to me is when a friend told me about how she developed breasts when she was 13, and how incredibly disturbing and some times scary for her it was to see grown men lusting sexually after her even though she was only 13. At least to me, it doesn't seem that out of the ordinary that someone in that position could develop a pyschological complex about their breasts.

In today's confusing world they could incorrectly assume that complex is meaning you have some Gender related issue, possibly even gender dysphoria, & under the current DSM-5 criteria, someone in that position could be incorrectly diagnosed as someone having gender dysphoria.

In fact, I once read an article titled, "My daughter isn't Transgender, She's a TomBoy."

The article describes how because, of all this confusion, This young 7 year old girl who is Gender Non-Conforming keeps being asked by teachers, her pediatrician, and even random adults who have known her for years, if she's sure she's not a boy. Now, this girl has a strong sense of self so she's able to say, " No, I not a boy. I'm just a girl who likes things that are typically male." This is a happening because, of this confusion of Gender Dysphoria being compared to Gender Non-Conforming people &/or MOGAI "genders" and that’s because, we don't have this clear distinction between Transsexual and Gender Non-Conforming people &/or MOGAI "genders". My fear is that not only are we confusing the fuck out of adults with the incorrect conflation of these terms but also, confusing kids who may be simply gender non-conforming making them think they are Transsexual.

And as a last note; Perhaps it's unfair for me to point this out but, I do find it somewhat ironic that the Tucute Trans community is fighting against the idea that the strict binary view of male and female gender by advocating a strict binary view of Sex & Gender.

End Rant.

Problems with the DSM-V:

1) The DSM-V is heavily criticized by the medical community for not using any scientific evidence to back up many of the things it says. It’s also just heavily criticized in general. This alone makes it an unreliable source as there isn’t any scientific evidence suggesting you don’t need gender dysphoria to be trans ergo the statement “ you don’t need Dysphoria” means nothing.

2) Psychology uses “transgender” as an umbrella term and has for a very, very long time. It includes trans people, transvestites, crossdressers, and other GNC people. Just because usage outside of the psychology field has shifted “transgender” to more mean “trans people” doesn’t mean that the psychology field has. This means that they’re likely speaking about their own term for what transgender is and seeing as how there’s no differentiation clarifying this, it’s ignorant to assume they’ve suddenly changed the meaning of one of their terms without stating as such.

3) Potentially most importantly, transgender/trans falls under the field of neurology/biology, not psychology. This means that while mental health professionals can certainly help us, it doesn’t mean they have all the answers and it doesn’t mean that their word is more important than that of the harder sciences involved.

Please share to spread awareness. I hope this helps someone.

[schizo-spoon-blog]

Spoonbender Society: Selected Schizoepistles

FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE:

We Live In A Society

People say we live in a democracy/democratic republic, a form of government intended to amplify what people think and address problems they find to be important. But it doesn’t ever seem to function that way.

The issue is in voter suppression, but as always not in the way people generally think voter suppression works. The issue is psychic, spiritual, and social suppression of citizens. Systemic over-development of senses of rationalization, neuroticism and anxiety, industrially incentivized narcissism.

People develop a deathly fear of what others think, or may think, or what they may have thought about them or what they think, what they may think, or what they may have thought.

A democracy where we’d rather not hear what other people have to say, because we find their thoughts offensive and retarded. That’s one thing people are happy to share. But because we suspect that there are so many offensive retards in the world, we fear... "Perhaps I’m a retard too?" You wonder that even for just a second in your life, if you have a soul. It’s OK to be a retard really, but you’ll never believe that it’s OK, and that's probably What Your Fucking Problem Is.

The opinions of us purported non-retards, to avoid sounding like complete retards, end up soft, ambivalent and stale, phrased like True Neutral Orgasm in Ego-Death Nirvana, but less Chad, less gratifying, and nobody cums. To not be reminded of the possibility of our own retardation, we like to pretend that if the retards just shut up and nobody can hear them, they go away. If they are Physically Removed from our presence, their evil thoughts and their malicious intentions will go away with them. We win. But they don’t. They never do.

We always fail to Psychically Remove them. We lose.

We can hypothesize a law of conservation of hatred, correlate one too of love, but the truth is banal. How can it be in light of our timeline? Why are these Hate Groups all over the place? Hitler’s corpse is rotting or burned to a crisp, or embalmed in a tomb or made a toilet for Some Rich Dude ((parenthetical removed)). (Or was he cloned?)

Great Fatherland Germany - defeated by the "untermensch" and partitioned like a cheese between rats. That Great "Faustian" and "Supreme" "Aryan" Race is subjugated by the hated "Juden" and all the "vermin" of the world, humiliated, castrated to be reunited a shadow of its former self. Yet the Nazi threat is omnipresent nearly a century later, in an era which may be an alien planet to those who lived in Hitler’s time.

How is it that the Great Allies, our fathers and grandfathers, achieved such total victory over so loathsome a foe, so unsympathetic and vile, only to see his Evil infect their own countrymen and posterity? How can something so thoroughly defeated still persist in what could be our neighbors or our co-workers our bosses or our employees? Each one could be a secret Nazi now. In parenting blogs moms worry that their children are becoming Nazis from goofy men they see in videos on line. Marriages are ending in divorce because the husband or wife is allegedly or apparently a Nazi. How could this happen?

Have you ever seen “The Matrix? Who hasn’t? You know all about the red and blue pills, and all the rainbow-flag DLC that it comes with, black and pink and green and brown and in configurations invisible to the human eye, I’m sure. If you don't know, the pills are portals to different realities. Take the black pill and you only see death, take the white pill and everything’s alright, take the blue pill you vote for Hillary, take the pink you become genderqueer. But this is not about taking any pills. This is about going off your meds. Going straight edge - except for whiskey, cigarettes, cocaine and pussy. It’s about the spoon - no, not for shooting up. It's for bending - with your mind. Remember? That spoon - The Spoon That Isn’t There.

That spoon is a Nazi.

If you are aware that there is no spoon you can tie it into knots. You can make it into a balloon animal. That Nazi Spoon could be a Jewish Socialist from Vermont, or a kosher Brooklyn Zionist, or a Dominican Taxi Driver. It could be an evil copy of your own son from Bizzaro World. It's probably your uncle. It could be Rottweilers, and Chihuahuas. Whether Pitbulls are Nazis or Jews/Blacks is an ongoing debate in the contemporary discourse.

But imaginary shit can be whatever the hell you want. You don’t have to be "The One" to Bend the Spoon. You don’t have to be anyone at all. What was the name of the kid who said the line about the spoon again? Nobody knows, nobody cares, and that's the beauty of Spoonbending.

"The Nazi" is the guy who keeps talking when he should shut up. He might be autistic, but he could just be an asshole. There is a strong possibility he could be both. Why does he keep saying all of this ridiculous stuff? He’s more offensive and more retarded than the usual, but it feels like He Has To Be This Way. Like it’s his curse, He Knows Too Much. He fell down some rabbit hole and ended up gorged on Fascist Propaganda. He mentions some girl named Celine. He rambles on about some guy you’re pretty sure is a Tekken character... the guy who turns into the Devil maybe. He mentions a vacation in Turkey with his family but insists on saying Constantinople and there’s a wild-man tear in his eye. He insists he knows about Atlantis and calls you gay for saying you liked Aquaman. Instead of saying goodbye he says “Subscribe to Pewdiepie.” The Nazi belongs in an institution. You wonder if he has guns and if maybe he should have them taken for a while. He probably doesn’t, but you can’t be sure. He’s 12.

When is it too early to become a school shooter? Is 12 too early to be an incel?

12 is probably the age at which incels hatch from their human hosts.

“Who is Pewdiepie, and how has he groomed my nephew into the Hitler Youth?” many families today are asking. They think they’re looking at a spoon. Conditoning fills your heart with a desperate desire to see the spoon. A fact, pure fact, logical, reasonable, peer reviewed, widely accepted, So True, a Textbook Fact. The spoon. Everyone else sees it too. That goddamn Nazi Spoon.

You ever try to ask this at a party as an ice-breaker and see how the guests react?

“So, anyway, was The Holocaust Real?”

“Excuse me, what?”

“What do you think, was it real, how many people do you think died, don’t the gas chambers sound goofy to you?”

”Um… no… they don’t sound goofy. What are you talking about?”

“You ever hear about the Nazi Roller-coaster they had at one of the camps? They’d put Jews into a roller-coaster except they’d fly off the edge and get splattered. That’s how the Nazis killed ‘em. I swear. I read it in a book by a Holocaust Survivor. Impossible to believe if it weren’t so True. No shit. You hear about that?”

”I’m… gonna get another beer.”

Of course there’s a Correct answer to that initial question. It’s also the Right answer. Who would ever get this wrong? It's the 2+2=X of History. Well…

Pop-Quiz, Random Nazi Check, Anybody here Hate Jews? You a Groyper, Son? What’s so funny? You think the Cookie Monster committing genocide is a laughing matter boy? We don’t take kindly to your kind around here.

Maybe you should give the Nazi-check thing a try, it’ll separate sheep and goat real easy for you.

If you do this everyone will think you are The Nazi.

The Nazis hated Jews, but did they hate real Jews as Jews exist, or did they hate the Fascist Propaganda Jew who was a work of fiction? On that note, were you in love with your last failed relationship, or just pretending you were? Have you ever had one impression of a person, but then learned they were another kind of person entirely? That first impression you had, the one that wasn’t True, was that a Real Person, or Imaginary? But you still spent all that money and sweat on an imaginary girl, huh?

Hope her hole was real.

I think that fake bitch of an ex you dated was a nazi. Your ex was a fascist. Oh, was she Jewish? It doesn’t matter, changes nothing. I’ve never met her - wouldn't matter if I did. When I imagine her, she's in Hugo Boss black and got skull-and-bones on her officer's cap, and she's saying racial slurs as she ruins your life, cheats on you, drains your bank account and kills your dog after getting custody over it in court. I imagine all bad people this way. All women who rejected me were exactly like this.

But I must breach working-class anti-fascist solidarity, and admit, on That Question ("Would you?").... Yeah, I would. Sorry bro. Take me away Comrades, I admit it, I'd give it to that Nazi Jew raw. Would I do that to her as she exists, or the Fascist Propaganda her who is a work of fiction?

That depends. You still got her number?

haha it's ok you can call me an incel, it's a step up from what i actually am

(User was banned for this post.)

The Nazi and the Fascist aren’t my hallucinations. That’s not my mental illness. But it’s adjacent to me, it’s thrown at me without my Consent, and it's a Trigger. I'm paranoid about commies myself.

In the multicultural cyberpunk year of 2019, with its trans-human gender-sex-orientations, anti-racist ethno-narcissism, fanatic anti-normalism, cultish critical theory intersections, grand byzantine minimalism, placidity, in such splendid predatory banality… In the absolute state of the world! – Aah! An undead ideology conceived by a salty Frenchman in the badlands of South Dakota in the 1890s shambles forth the devour all that is Good and Holy in the Great United States of AmeriKKKa, God Help Us All! And A Child Will Lead Those Dreadful Legions of Corruption Upon All The Meek Of Our Fallen World!

Or it’s just a spoon that isn’t real.

Nobody wants to be straight-forward, and I gotta navigate the labyrinths of euphemism. Maybe there's something weird going on - how people talk, how people act, how people think, none of those correlate to each other. It makes you feel schizo when you do all your mental rain-man calculus and realize there's a fucking Elephant in the living room and he's not wearing any goddamn pants. Once that little ray-of-sunshine blesses your tiny bug-man brain to enlighten you that the elephant is real, and the spoon isn't, it's only a matter of time before you're crowned in tinfoil a Potato King on your off-grid Bug-out estate in the Idaho Panhandle, or start drinking yourself to death and bullying mailmen (or both).

If you'd like to avoid that sort of Elephant-Mania Spoon-denialism, maybe you should try answering Uncomfortable Question instead of being so Weird about it, oh wise Mr. Kirk, Mr. Shapiro, Mr. Talking-Head, Mr. Important-Guy, Mr. Movement, Mr. Politics, Mr. Voice of Reason, Mr. Metatron. Take it from a schizo-maniac with a manifesto, you’re freaking out the hoes.

Try Praeger U talking points out on a Tinder date and watch her shrivel up from instathot to instahag -- she will go through menopause before your very eyes, that's how dry her pussy will get. Trying not to sound racist while talking about the Antarctic Nazi base and the importance of craniometry in ethnocultural anthropology will get you more action than anything that sounds like a paraphrase of Charlie Kirk -- because even if you're still being cringe at least you aren't being fake. Point and laugh at that fucking elephant - the moron isn't even wearing pants! That'll get her thinking about taking your pants off. Or not - it's not foolproof. If she doesn't laugh, red-flag, she's a Nazi so Begone Thot!

Please, for the love of God, go off-script! See the damn elephant and forget the spoon, and forget the wise Mr. Kirk, Mr. Shapiro, Mr. Talking-Head, Mr. Important-Guy, Mr. Movement, Mr. Politics, Mr. Voice of Reason, Mr. Metatron. Take it from a schizo-maniac with a manifesto, you'll go insane if you don't.

[. . . ] [T]hen there's that neuroticism, that narcissism, that fear. The whole point of these politics groups and gatherings and Q&As is what, anyway? Is it really just basic marketing tactics, like a live-action advertisement you expect for people to passively consume as though it is persuasive? To shove free-markets and free-speeches down my throat and have me swallow it without having anything that’s been bothering me answered? What do I look like to you, an Ideology Whore? You don't even reciprocate a good time, huh? I'm not that kind of girl. You didn't even buy me dinner. You made me pay to bore me. I'd cuck you if we dated just to make a very important point -- fully aware it'll go over your head. Fuck you.

We gotta hear The Script. We gotta recite The Script.

Real Conservatives Think Like This. Real Progressives Think Like This. White People Walk Like This. Black People Walk Like This.

Gotta hear that joke ten thousand times so you can recite it like a mantra in your sleep.

Free markets mean free people. Facts don’t care about your feelings. Private Companies can do what they wish. What you do in your bedroom is your own business. We want legal immigration, not illegal.

Abolish ICE. Your childhood hero says Trans-Rights. Do you not want me in the movement? Abolish whiteness.

The Racism of Lowered Expectations.

Reparations.

A white nation.

Workers of the world unite!

Abortion is a human right.

Have you got it memorized?

Let’s go over it a few more times.

Say it with me! Hillary was found innocent in a hundred hearings and it is sexist to besmirch her reputation.

Repeat after me! Trump’s economy is the best in history, and if he's racist why is black unemployment is at historical lows.

You benefit from unearned privilege. You suffer from toxic masculinity.

The world is about to end and everything you know and love will die, and it is your fault, for not believing in the correct things at the correct time.

Are you laughing yet?

I’m dying. I feel like an e-girl, and my orbiters are sides.

But do you wanna know what I really think? The whole bit about psychic and social suppression? You ever hear about the Procrustean bed? Well, what if we put your political, social, moral consciousness and your psychic abilitys into a bed like that. We could talk about it. You ever play Xenogears?

Or you could just put me in a box. I really wouldn't mind. I'm Houdini. Hey, was Houdini a Nazi, like Henry Ford? Can we get a fact-check? I didn't mean to be problematic.

Break the Conditoning - Step outside the box, and use it as a step ladder. Ascend, Beyond the Box - use The Spoon.

Bush did 9/11, the Israeli’s danced, the Aliens killed JFK - sure - but I only say this because of my MK Ultra Schizo-brain. It’s true, it’s false, it’s fact, it’s myth, I don’t have to believe any of it -- I also don't have to believe any of you if I don’t want to. My feelings do not care about your facts, and did you know that some of the world's most uncomfortable facts are manifested into being by uncomfortable feelings? Is it the fact of the bullet that kills the political dissident, or the feelings of his executioner? Is it the deranged lust of the rapist that violates his victim, or the fact of his power to do so? I guess it depends on whether the perpetrator said "nothing personnel kid" before he committed the act. I don't know about that Nazi Rapist's feelings, but MY feelings are valid and I can believe or disbelieve whatever I want on the basis of my feelings, and my feelings alone. My feelings bend the spoon of your facts.

Are you going to say I don’t have the right, Adolf? Sucks for you, bud, I may be a commie by blood, but the heart that pumps it was assembled in the ole USA -- and we got the Right to be a Retard here in America. It's a Free Country.

[Note: please insert image of Jonathan Frakes from Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction]

Now that the dust has settled: Was the Nazi Roller-Coaster Real? Or did we put the Truth in a Mass-Grave? We will let you know at the conclusion of our program.

Sincerely and Full of Suffering Your Friend Always, Orcbrand

[octaviainthewasteland]

Wonder Woman: on female characters in comics PART 3

p. 1, 2, 3

Finally my lazy ass finished it. Warning: Image heavy. Please bear in mind that English is not my first language and we do not beta, we die liek mne!

Part 3: Woman: Warrior, Wife, Wonder

Summary: Critical analysis of the character of Wonder Woman

Under the cut

*

Previously, I have talked about gender inequality in the comics industry and poor portrayal of female characters in the comics. In this part, I am going to talk about comics as an active political tool, and Wonder Woman as a medium of gender politics.

 Lepore and Fawaz both define Wonder Woman as the banner-bearer of the feminist separatist utopia (Lepore, 2016: 199) (Fawaz, Hall, Kinsella, 2017: 9), though they refer to different feminist movements. While Lepore stresses the importance of the movement of 1910s for the invention of Wonder Woman, Fawaz matches Themyscrira, the home island of Wonder Woman, to the idea of separatism of 1970s. As noted by De Beauvoir and Fawaz, it was impossible to imagine the life without men. Women have no separate history, no separate culture. They were attracted to the idea of an island, isolated from the rest of the world. This fantasy on the pages of the comic book has become a safe space for exploring the social, cultural and political possibilities and conflicting notions of a better, desirable world (Fawaz, Hall, Kinsella, 2017: 4).

 The very birth of Wonder Woman is a political statement. In the early 1930s Margaret Sanger has led the birth control movement. (Lepore, 2016: 147) The question of to whom belonged the power over the woman’s body has been on everyone’s lips. On the pages of The Origin of Wonder Woman Marston tells a story of a matriarchal birth, a celebration of woman’s agency. (Wonder Woman #1, 1942) Parallels can be found between the legend of Wonder Woman and Christian narratives, even more so than, for example, Superman, who is typically analysed as a Jesus figure. She is born, fathered by no mortal man, and sets on saving the humanity from the forces of hate and oppression, fighting injustice, suffering, intolerance and destruction. She is omnibenevolent and wise, even being chosen by the ring of the Star Sapphires, because her heart is abundant with love (Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #2, 2010) However, Diana has neither father, nor any similar patriarchal figure in her life. She is born in a feminist utopia with no contribution from a man. The significance of this phenomenon cannot be overstated. Wonder Woman is devoid of the weight of patriarchy; hence she is the manifestation of the feminist fantasy (Curtis, 2017: 307). For 70 years she has been an exceptional figure within the pop-culture, centered around the question of Fathers and Children and ignoring the trope of the Absent Mother. The feminist utopian fantasy, though, has been killed in 2012. Of all people, by her own new authors, Azzarello and Chiang. Not only does Wonder Woman have a father now, trivializing her story, taking away her legendary status, but also this new version destroys the sisterhood. In the new version, Hippolyta lies, because she is scared of Hera’s jealousy and revenge. The same Hera, who has protected Diana and Hippolyta from Zeus’ forced advances. The same Hera, who has blessed Diana at birth. Goddesses and Amazons are no longer a monolithic front, now they are pitted against each other, fighting over the affections of a man. Wonder Woman used to be a character born from defiance. Now she is a character born from fraud, and the supremacy of the male principle has been reinstated. (314)

 What early villains of the Wonder Woman comics share is their opposition to gender equality. Some villains were fictional, some of flesh and blood. Jill Lepore uncovers a schism, verging on an open war, between the writers of Wonder Woman in 1942 (Lepore, 2016: 210-213). Gardner Fox rejects the idea of the female superhero and downgrades Wonder Woman to typing out minutes and getting trapped to be saved by the male members of the Justice’s Society.

 (All-Star Comics #14)

He refuses to include her in the action and show her fighting side by side with the rest of her colleagues. (All-Star Comics #12-17, 1942-43) On contrary, the political influence of Marston’s Wonder Woman grows by leaps and bounds, both in fiction and in real life.

 It is worth to also compare the politics of visual presented by the case of Fox and Marston. Under Fox’s pen Wonder Woman becomes a meek female heroine, an incompetent lady, and the textbook token female character, which makes a team diverse without delivering any real contribution. After the death of Marston, she is stripped even of such nominal power. Just as Athena warns Amazons, if they submit to a man, they will lose their powers. The metaphor of the gauntlets is very curious, in fact. Amazons are bound, so that they do not forget what happens if they let man conquer them (Madrid 2009: 36). Surprisingly, Wonder Woman uses the gauntlets to protect herself, deflecting bullets and other weapons. We can see a careful threading of Marston’s motif on the struggle of women. A paradoxical situation of a shackle turned into a shield can be connoted as the remainder for women that they have broken free and they are powerful, but if they submit to a man, they will lose all their power. (Lepore, 2016: 220) Wonder Woman’s lasso is also a reference to a real-life phenomenon, specifically the lie detector. Its invention has fascinated Marston and on more than one occasion he has offered his services as the operator to the US Army (Lepore, 2016: 61). For him it has been a turning point in history of science and politics, and of course, Wonder Woman needs such a device in her adventures.

 Opposed to Fox’s portrayal, Marston’s Wonder Woman stands against the International Milk Company that has been overcharging for milk, “an essential element of American children’s lives”. It has been a direct criticism of politicians such as Al Smith. On the pages of the comic books, Al Smith turns into a Nazi secret agent Alphonso De Gyppo, the evil president of the International Milk Company. Twice he tries to kill Wonder Woman, but she manages to escape him and lead a political rally. She captures his evil boss, Baroness Paula von Gunther, and the prices for milk drop, to the gratitude of American children and everyone concerned. Another example involves a fictionalized social critique of the working conditions in America. A textile workers’ strike in Massachusetts, in 1912, is retold as a strike against Bullfinch’s Department Stores, as the workers are underpaid and exploited. The real villain is the fiancé of the lady, who is owning the Department Stores, and when she realizes his true evil nature, she punches him and takes over, doubling everyone’s salaries as the first order. (Sensation Comics #8, 1942)

  Everything feminine and girlish had been considered (still is) weak and boring (Lepore, 2016: 187). Marston, on the other hand, believed that men confuse desire with pleasure. They desire domination, while women can receive pleasure from both domination and submission. He felt that if there had been a strong beautiful woman (Marston wanted Wonder Woman to look like a Varga Girl), men would submit to her willingly and she would teach them love and peace. Never before such a character has existed (191). Submissiveness became power.

  (georgia peach, alberto vargas, esquire, 1940s)

The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps are formed in 1942 by Roosevelt. Each issue of the solo Wonder Woman comic book has praised women, who have also been scientists, writers, politicians, social workers, doctors, nurses, athletes, and adventurers – or, in other words, Wonder Women of History. (Lepore, 2016: 220-222) Chained, tied up and gagged women are an allusion on the suffragist movement. Women seemingly reclaim the imagery of bondage and bound, giving it the implication of the struggle, the defiance, and resistance. Moreover, the idea of submission has been the new display of feminine supremacy. (236)

 Fretheim suggests noting that Wonder Woman’s weapons form circles and defines them as ‘vaginal weapons’ (Fretheim, 2017: 24) as opposed to phallic weapons such as guns and swords. That it, I must correct myself, until recently. As can be seen in Chiang reimagination of Wonder Woman, she is often depicted on the comic book covers with swords, axes and other weapons.

  As if drawn phallic weapons also raise the levels of testosterone, to match her updated apparel, new Wonder Woman is also more short-tempered, aggressive and has actually become the new Goddess of War after defeating Ares. (Cocca, 2014) However, some, like Walter J. Ong, have argued that even the earliest version of Wonder Woman has been ‘too much like a man’. (Lepore, 2016: 255) He criticizes her resistance towards marriage and family life, accuses her of sustaining only on the anti-social pure sexual allure, by standards of the men. He goes on to develop an argument that comics have been fascist propaganda, with the concept of ‘supermen’ directly borrowed from Nietzsche, ‘the herald of Nazism’. (256) If you are not sure who Walter J. Ong is, it is that same man who concluded that Batman and Robin promote homosexuality and we can say thanks to him for the Comics Code nonsense. So, we can see that Wonder Woman has constantly faced accusations of being ‘too masculine’. It is a hard job of being a girl in the boys club: you’re either the lady-friend who inevitably becomes the love interest or you’re a tomboy. Wonder Woman tries to be both, to be neither, to be something else entirely.

 Nonetheless, in 1944, out of all comic book superheroes, it is Wonder Woman, who becomes a newspaper strip. There is a considerable difference in exposure between comic books and daily newspapers, opening a whole new audience to Wonder Woman. She joins Superman and Batman as the first trans-media superheroes and thus the Trinity is formed. Marston has always been quite open about Wonder Woman being feminist psychological propaganda for the new type of strong and courageous womanhood. (220) The message of Wonder Woman transcends the comic books and becomes a social commentary on the gender politics and economic environment of the twentieth century.

 Unfortunately, this is the temporary liberation. The most sinister villain of them all turns out to be the peacetime. Once again, the comic book works as a mirror, reflecting the changes on the political and socio-cultural stage. With the end of the Second World War, there blooms a daunting realization that the service of women is no longer required. The period of high threat is relieved by the period of low threat and the decisive, tough heroes can loosen up. Not to undermine them and the returning soldiers, women all over the country are fired and urged, those unmarried, to tie the knot, and those married, to hurry up and procreate. Wonder Woman is stripped of her kinky red boots, of her position at the Justice’s Society and ultimately, her powers. She becomes a friendly guide for young ladies, who dream of fairy tale romance, a handsome husband and a multitude of little pink-cheeked copies of him, running around their little cozy house. (271)

  Feminist movement gave birth to Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman has become the symbol of the feminist movement. When Wonder Woman has appeared to be chained and depowered and forced to fit into categories she has been fighting against since her creation, “fellow sisters” has come to her aid. She is put on the cover of the Ms. magazine and once again blazes the fantasy of the female superhero, equal to Superman and Batman, and of the all-women culture, glorious in its isolation from the discrimination and oppression of the male imposition. (Lepore, 2016: 283; Fawaz, Hall, Kinsella, 2017: 8)

  Wonder Woman returns to peaceful protests on the pages of It Aint Me Baby and feminist newsletters. There starts the try and miss of the comic industry with the female characters. Wanting to cash in on feminists, Marvel attempts to introduce new female characters, but they all fail spectacularly after just a handful of issues. (Lepore, 2016: 289) Forty-five years later, the situation is not much better. Marvel executives even try to put the blame on the readers, because apparently the stories about diverse characters are not selling. (Cain, 2017)

To be fair, in 70s it has been a real issue. Nothing has been selling. Even Wonder Woman. The feminist movement is divided. Radical, liberal and intersectional movements emerge, at odds with each other. The Second Wave supports a predominantly white, heterosexual view.

 In 1987, Wonder Woman is rebooted. Pérez and Wein make her more ethnic, acknowledging her origins. They finally bring up the fact that on an island with 100 percent female population, homosexual relationships take place. (Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #38, 1990) In the #180 issue Diana is in a relationship with an African American man, Trevor Barnes. She gains her powers back. She addresses the issues of race, sexuality and gender. Wonder Woman rises again on the crest of the Third Wave of Feminism: a struggle for equality, diversity, complexity, inclusivity, individualism and cultural critique. (Cocca, 2014) However, due to historical processes, as history does not evolve in a linear, progressive fashion, the maturity and growth call for a major backlash (Cocca, 2016: 10). The comic books are then overflowing with hyper-masculine men and hyper-sexualized women. The new Wonder Woman, Artemis, has been criticized and remained unaccepted both by readers and by the characters of the comics themselves. For instance, Batman is openly dismissive of her and objects to her presence, going as far as forbidding Artemis to even sit in Diana’s chair in the Justice League Headquarters. (Wonder Woman Vol. 2 #90, 1994) The problem with Artemis is that she is too aggressive, too rash, and therefore, does not fit the norms of femininity, imposed by the predominantly male audience.

 Wonder Woman is rebooted anew in 2011, as mentioned before. Contrary to the critiques that Artemis has received, this Diana is also aggressive and ‘male-like’. Here we can notice a similar pattern. Because female empowerment associates in men’s mind opposite proportionately with male disempowerment, a strong female superhero that challenges the social structures terrifies the reader. Hence, Amazons are both objectified and dehumanized. They are no longer peaceful immortal protectors – after the reboot, in order to maintain their population and quench their sexual thirst, they engage in sexual intercourses with sailors, who have expressed dubious consent and are often killed off afterwards. Newborn girls are to stay on the island, while boys are sold into slavery to Hephaestus in exchange for weapons. Amazons’ queerness is erased from the narrative. Wonder Woman discovers that she has a brother, who is somehow more powerful than she is. (Justice League Vol. 2 #50, 2016)

 She also pursues romance with Steve Trevor. Their relationship is truly a double-edge sword. He has appeared in the first issue of Wonder Woman and has remained her supporting character since. The polarity of his character lies in the interpretation. From one side, he is a ‘token boyfriend’ (Robbins, 2006), from the other, he is a lonely boy in the refrigerator. Robbins argues that introduction of Steve Trevor should ensure the reader in Wonder Woman’s heterosexuality. Therefore, he is the political instrument that positions Wonder Woman in the framework of heteronormativity. On the other hand, it is an interesting subversion of the ‘damsel in distress’ trope. Steve Trevor gets in trouble and Wonder Woman rushes to his rescue. His suffering propels her plotline and he is secondary to her character, not having much of a distinct personality, changing with the trends over time, reflecting what kind of man is popular at that instance. The only constant is the mesmerized ‘Angel’ to Diana, which, in fact, either baffles or irritates her. (Sensation Comics #2, 1942) Either way, the existence of the character of Steve Trevor restricts Wonder Woman from exploring her diverse sexuality, but on the other hand constructs a new meaning for visual representation of Wonder Woman in the comics.

 During the Second World War, people have been constantly bombarded – by standardized imagery. With the rise of Communism and the National Socialism, the rhetoric of good and bad has returned to the military conflict. One side is morally right; their opponents then must be immoral and wrong. One side is the hero and the other side is the villain, aiming to oppress, torture and destroy. As we know from the fairytales, from everything we have been taught, the good side always wins the evil. The hero always arrives just in time and saves everyone. This stream of non-stop visuals from the media has produced something Alvin Toffler calls a ‘mass-mind’. (Toffler, 1980: 176) The comic books promote All-American ideology and the image of the superhero that defends the world with the help of the good sports from the American Army. It is a ready-to-wear moral certainty. The movements are represented by a particular group: the feminist movement is predominantly white and heterosexual; the LGBT movement receives one-dimensional representation of the G.

 In the late 70s the stream gradually becomes less uniform. Toffler introduces the concept of ‘a blip culture’ (177), a culture of confusion, feeling of abandonment and anger, because now the visuals are fragmented, contradictory, people are left to give these ‘blips’ their own meaning. The system pulsates with bigger and bigger amounts of data. Today we want out information fast. Faster. Memes, photos, tweets, and headlines of the articles we are never going to open to read in full at the top of the IPhone screen. We prefer to digest information through visuals. It does not matter where we live, in a developed or a developing country, in a metropolitan city or in the countryside, we stay up to date with the pop-culture. It necessarily consists of the modern and old media, which become another ode of propaganda and promotion of the ideas, people and trends that just ought to become popular. The power of textual is substituted by the power of the visual.

 Comics are the low genre of entertainment. It is primarily identified as being strictly for children and youth (Ndalianis, 2011: 113). And yet it has victoriously invaded the mainstream media. No matter how much so-called nerds desire to maintain the illusion of an exclusive boy-club, who are socially awkward and misunderstood by everyone, it is no longer a niche. The comic book characters’ faces decorate lunch boxes and backpacks; they become a new type of celebrity, symbols of the generations. It is no longer the comics in itself that is important – but the superheroes. The phenomenon of the superhero has transcended the medium of the comic book. Pop-culture turns politics into another component of the field of entertainment, and brings it on the transnational level. It becomes a performance, where the spectators are the citizens, divided into the politically charged individuals and apolitical witnesses. The superheroes are a fiction, but the borders of the fiction and the reality blur. With appearance of the superheroes on the screen, the audience starts associating the character with the face of the actor. Because the superheroes are already surrounded by myths, different interpretations and fandom, the figure of the superhero can become more real than the person, playing him or her. The imagery and simulacra, which are the foundation of the society, create a model of the prevailing life style of the said society. It is not the aggregate of the characters, but the social relationships between people, intermediated by these characters. (Baudrillard, 1994)

 To support my argument about how the superheroes received the status of celebrities and how Wonder Woman has become a simulacrum of the political figure, we need to break down the process into five stages. I shall bring some examples to build a case to explain how the superheroes have evolved in our consciousness and from mirrors have transformed into active agents that represent and influence masses.

 In 1996, a special edition comic book has been released, featuring Superman, to promote the landmine awareness among children. The comic has been distributed to Bosnia and the territories of the former Yugoslavia. DC has published the comic book in cooperation with the Department of Defense and UNICEF. So, exhibit one: the superheroes, as the role models, are suitable to educate children.

 In 2016, a certain video has gone viral under the name Avengers Against Trump. In reality, it has little to do with Marvel and its team of superheroes, but it has starred some of the actors from the cast of the Avengers, such as Scarlett Johansson, who have been emphasizing the importance of each and every vote. Their disdain for Trump becomes the disdain of the superhero they play. Exhibit two: the process is started, the reality and the fiction begin to merge, the figure of the actor is perceived not as a celebrity of interest, but as the avatar of the superhero.

 On February 7, 2016, Turkish Airlines has released a commercial, where they have been ‘pleased to announce the new destination: Gotham City’. Ben Affleck appears during the commercial, credited as Bruce Wayne. Exhibit three: real life companies utilize the superheroes as the ambassadors of the brand. The line between performers and the superheroes they play becomes even thinner. The superhero becomes more real.

 In this fashion, Wonder Woman is no different. Maybe even more exemplary, as she has been created specifically as feminist propaganda. The artwork in Mural, Philadelphia, depicting Wonder Woman landing a punch on Donald Trump, illustrates quite well the extent to which the reality of our social and political consciousness and superhero narratives influence each other.

 Wonder Woman is a superhero, which defends all defenseless and openly stands against discrimination and oppression – and there she stands against Donald Trump, a person in a position of power, who is infamous for his racism and sexism. Exhibit number four: gathering information and background from the comics, TV-shows and movies, we analyse it and draw our own conclusions and assume that the superheroes have certain opinions about the realm of noumena, to which they do not belong, and what these opinions would be. Most people would agree that Batman is – notice how the conditional would be is dropped – for gun control. Harley Quinn is crazy about Comic-Cons. Wonder Woman is anti-Trump.

 Wonder Woman has become a symbol and a spokesperson of modern feminism through this fusion of fiction, politics and personalities of the actresses. Wonder Woman has become a simulacrum of a celebrity and by extension a political figure. She makes choices, supports some politicians and publicly disapproves others. The critical point of this development takes place on October 21, 2016, when the UN has decided to use Wonder Woman in an honorary role in the empowerment campaign to fight for gender equality, and thus, Wonder Woman is appointed as the UN ambassador. The final exhibit: it shows that the superhero is treated like a real person and has been given exercisable political power. One might point out that she has been demoted from the position two months after, but the case rests. We live in a world, where Wonder Woman has become an ambassador of the United Nations, even if only for two months.

(Wonder Woman design art, Harry G Peter, 1942)

Bibliography

Fawaz, R., Hall, J., & Kinsella, H. (2017). Discovering paradise islands: The politics and pleasures of feminist utopias, a conversation. Feminist Review, 116(1), 1-21.

 Lepore, J. (2015). The Secret History of Wonder Woman. New York: Knopf.

 Curtis, N. (2017). Wonder Woman’s symbolic death: On kinship and the politics of origins. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 8(4), 307-320.

 Madrid, M. (2009). ‘Sirens and Suffragettes.’ The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines. Ashland, OR: Exterminating Angel, 2009. 145–81. Print.

 Fretheim, I. M. (2017) Fantastic Feminism: Female Characters in Superhero Comic Books. Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo

 Cocca, C. (2014). Negotiating the Third Wave of Feminism in "Wonder Woman". PS: Political Science and Politics, 47(1), 98-103.

 Cocca, C. (2016). Superwomen: gender, power, and representation.

 Cain, S. (2017). Marvel executive says emphasis on diversity may have alienated readers. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/03/marvel-executive-says-emphasis-on-diversity-may-have-alienated-readers [last accessed on 1 May, 2018]

 Robbins, T. (2006). Wonder Woman, Lesbian Or Dyke?: Paradise Island as a Woman's Community. Available at: http://girl-wonder.org/papers/robbins.html [last accessed on 15 April, 2018]

 Toffler, A. (1981). The third wave. London: Pan in association with Collins.

 Ndalianis, A. (2011). Why Comics Studies? Cinema Journal, 50(3), 113-117.

 Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.

 Fly to Gotham City with Turkish Airlines! Super Bowl TV SPOT (2016) Available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS7JBHxdxko [last accessed on 8 May, 2018]

 Avengers Against Trump. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnK9tEdNjX8 [last accessed on 8 May, 2018]

[aridara]

So, apparently, @terfslurring​ didn’t like it when I called out her “Trans people reject the biological reality of sex and want to impose gender roles on everyone!” bullshit, and decided to write me some responses. By reblogging a completely different thread that wasn’t about trans people (it was about abortion), but whatever.

So I decided to answer them here.

First post: two quotes from Andrea Dworkin. Which have nothing to do with the argument at hand. Next.

Second post: A pamphlet about “How to spot MRA ideology”. Which basically tries to claim that Men’s Rights Activists and trans activist are somehow the same thing. Which is patently ridiculous.

For example, the first page claims that MRAs:

... Are anti-feminist. (True.)

...Focus on issues that, according to MRAs themselves, discriminate against men. (True in the sense that MRAs do claim that those issues discriminate against men; whether those issues actually discriminate against men or not is another issue entirely.)

...Often use the term “TERF” against feminists. (False. MRAs don’t care about whether feminists are against trans people or not.)

The second page claims that MRAs often label themselves “Trans Rights Activists”, or “TRA”. Which is completely and utterly false: the most cursory exploration of any MRA website (for example r/mensrights, A Voice For Men, Heartiste...) will show that MRAs are openly against trans people, frequently vilify them and declare them to be mentally ill, openly advocate in favor of forcibly institutionalizing trans people to “fix” them, etc.

There’s more lies in that pamphlet, like the lie that trans advocates deny the existence of sexism or the lie that TERFs do not claim that “trans women are violent predators, pedophiles and rapists”. But really, just the fact that the pamphlet tried to conflate a pro-trans group with a very anti-trans one is enough to dismiss it as total bullshit.

Third post... Oh, boy, I’ll need quotes for this.

Gender Critical Feminism

is a term used by those in the feminist community who consider gender a harmful social construct that is confused with -but distinct from -biological sex.

The World Health Organization defines gender as “the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women”.WHO: gender equity, human rights

Except that trans people are talking about gender identity, not gender roles.

Gender identity (which is what most people and especially trans people and advocates refer to when they say “gender”) is, by definition, self-determined. You decide the label of your own gender identity, and how to express yourself; nobody else can do it for you.

Gender role (which is what pretty much only trans-exclusionary feminists refer to when they say “gender”) is the idea that people should act in a certain way depending on what genitalia they have. By definition, you’re trying to tell other people what to do.

Trans advocates advocate in favor of letting everyone express their own gender identity however they want. TERFs falsely claim that trans advocates are in favor of imposing gender roles on everyone, whether they want it or not - which is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of what trans advocates are doing.

Gender critical feminists believe the definition of “man” and the definition of “woman” should be based solely on biology, rather than on “masculine” or “feminine” personality traits or an innate sense of gender identity.

They recognize those with XX-chromosomes, ovaries designed to produce large egg cells, female genitalia, and a relatively high level of estrogen and progesterone as biologically female. They define “woman” as an adult human female.

They recognize those with XY-chromosomes, testes designed to produce small sperm cells, male genitalia, and a relatively high level of testosterone as biologically male. They define “man” as an adult human male.

Intersex people, who represent less than 0.02% of the entire population are those whose chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, and genitals do not conform to the biological binary of female or male bodies. Gender critical feminists recognize intersex people as a distinct group of people with an empirically diagnosable medical condition.

Alright. So, as I’ve repeatedly stated, pretty much all transphobes do three things.

1. They claim that there’s only two separate human sexes (plus eventually a small amount of exceptions, tiny enough to be ignored). According to Terfslurring, “gender critical feminists” fit the bill.

2. They claim that sex must be determined by looking at specific sex-determining characteristics. Again: according to Terfslurring, “gender critical feminists” fit the bill - they look at chromosomes (XX versus XY), gonads (ovaries versus testicles), genitalia (I suppose vagina versus penis), and hormone levels (high estrogen + progesterone versus high testosterone).

3. They believe that making everyone determine everyone’s sex in the “correct” way (see the above) is VERY important. This is blatantly obvious - whenever goes against the “there’s only two separate sexes” claim (for example, by saying that sex is a spectrum), gender-critical feminists actively oppose that someone and claim that they’re wrong. Likewise, whenever someone goes against the “chromosomes/gonads/genitalia/hormones determine a person’s sex” claim (for example, by respecting a person’s chosen identity, regardless of their genitalia), gender-critical feminists actively oppose that someone and claim that they’re wrong.

So, here’s something fun that I want to point out: transphobes love to claim that their beliefs are absolutely correct and precise, and that whoever refuses to determine people’s sex in the “correct” way must necessarily be in the wrong.

This also applies to the transphobes themselves. They don’t get to viciously attack anyone who goes against the “there’s only two separate sexes” claim when THEY THEMSELVES go against that same claim.

For example, let’s take everyone on the planet and divide them like gender-critical feminists want me to.

Everyone who has XX chromosomes, ovaries, a vagina, an uterus, and high levels of estrogen and progesterone will go in the “FEMALE” box.

Everyone who has XY chromosomes, testicles, a penis, and high levels of testosterone will go in the “MALE” box.

Everyone else will go in the “EXCEPTIONS” box.

Here’s the problem: the exceptions are way, way, WAY more than 0,02% of the human population. So, I can’t ignore them.

But if I can’t ignore them, then I must accept that there aren’t just two separate human sexes.

And if I accept that there aren’t just two separate human sexes, gender-critical feminists will declare that I’m wrong.

Conclusion: according to gender-critical feminist theory, gender-critical feminist theory is wrong. So, I’ll throw it out.

Moving on.

“Cisgender”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines cisgender as “denoting or relating to a person whose self-identity conforms with the gender that corresponds to their biological sex; not transgender.

”Gender critical feminists object to the idea that their “self-identity” “conforms” with the feminine gender role they were assigned at birth. They reject their assigned gender traits and roles as a form of oppression, and do not “self-identify” with them at all.

This is more of that thing where trans advocates talk about gender identity, and gender-critical feminists talk about gender roles.

On the plus side, it means that gender-critical feminists have absolutely no argument against gender identity.

According to trans-inclusive feminists, being cisgendered means that biological women and girls have “cisgender privilege” which is defined as the “set of unearned advantages that individuals who identify as the gender they were assigned at birth accrue solely due to having a cisgender identity”.

Gender critical feminists do not believe that both being biologically female and knowing you are biologically female makes you a member of a privileged class. Nor do they believe males who identify as female are more oppressed than actual females.

What follows is a long list of statistics about issues that women face due to sexism. I’ll spare you, because I don’t actually object to those statistics.

What I do object to, is Terfslurring’s claim that transphobia - which is oppression from cis people (men or women) against trans people (men, women or otherwise) - doesn’t exist because sexism - which is oppression from men (cis or otherwise) against women (cis or otherwise) doesn’t exist. Which makes as much sense as claiming that racism doesn’t exist because sexism exists.

Likewise, Terfslurring is trying to imply that cis women can’t be transphobic towards trans women, because cis women are victims of sexism from men. Which makes as much sense as “white women can’t be racist towards black men, because cis women are victims of sexism from men”.

Then there’s a bunch of lies that aim to absolve TERFs from their transphobia. I’ll just give you the highlights.

Despite claims that “transwomen are women” gender critical feminists note that laws based on gender identity allow any predatory male to claim a female identity and gain access to vulnerable women in shelters, locker rooms, restrooms, and prisons. 

Except that those laws have NOT helped predatory males to gain access to vulnerable women. For example, the “If we let trans women in women’s bathroom, predatory men will assault women in bathrooms!” panic? A complete fabrication made from homophobic groups.

Lesbian feminist Janice Raymond is frequently accused of having “blood on her hands” for single-handedly denying government funding and insurance coverage for transgender surgery/hormone treatment.

According to The Terfs.com “It was only after the NCHCT [National Center for Health Care Technology] published Raymond’s bigotry in 1980 that the US government reversed course in 1981 and took up Raymond’s views and rhetoric.”48

But the US state and federal government had never funded sex change procedures, so the accusation makes no sense.

This is false. Before 1981, the USA did fund trans care. The USA changed their stance after the OHTA Report was issued.

Still, trans activists claim a single sentence by Janice Raymond included in the 15 page NCHCT report (“transsexual surgery is controversial in our society”) caused the US state and federal government, under the Reagan administration, to reject government funding for sex change procedures. 

False. The NCHCT asked Raymond to write a report about the ethical and social aspects of trans care.

The USA state didn’t “reject government funding for sex change procedures” because of the NCHCT report, unlike what Terfslurring is claiming; it did because of the OHTA (Office of Health Technology Assessment) report. The OHTA report made three claims - one of which was that ”transsexual surgery is controversial in our society”. Two sources were used to back up that claim:

Raymond’s NCHCT report, which was about the ethical and social aspects of trans care (NOT about the economical or experimental aspects). The entire report - not a “single sentence”.

A review of Raymond’s 1979 book, “The Transsexual Empire, The Making of the She-Male”.

Along with allegedly denying the existence of transgender people, gender critical feminists are accused of being responsible for the high murder rate of transgender people even though transgender people are overwhelmingly murdered by men...

Except that gender-critical feminists promote the same “trans women are violent rapists” mentality that those men use to justify their attacking - and killing - trans women.

...and have high rates of involvement in the extremely dangerous sex trade.

44% of black transgender people and 33% of latino transgender people have experience in the sex trade. People involved in the sex trade are 18 times more likely to be murdered than others of their same race and class.

Funny that 1) you haven’t confronted statistics between cis and trans people;

And 2) you actively refute any testimony from transgender people. Including those black/latino trans people in the sex trade - especially when they try to tell you that, having experienced both sexism, racism and transphobia, they can tell the difference between the three.

But no. You just immediately assume that they don’t know what they’re talking about, and that all transphobia is just misguided homophobia/sexism/whorephobia/anything-that-isn’t-transohobia. Old tactic.

Despite this, trans activists rarely blame male sex buyers (or males in general)...

This is blatantly false. Just look at how often they talk about male transphobic groups.

Also, “male sex buyers”? ...Why do I suspect that you’re also against sex work (not “sex trade”, I’ve said sex work)?

There’s more, but frankly, I had enough.

[siriusist]

♠ ACE REPRESENTATION MASTERLIST ♠

Sherlock Holmes.

Jughead Jones [in the reboot solo comics -coughcoughthanksriverdale-]

Let’s face it. Mostly everyone’s favourite literary characters are asexuals, but when faced with most asexuals in real life, people tend to get...

Weird. 

 ‘Why don’t you like to go out?’

‘You just haven’t met the right guy.’

#WHYISITANYOFYOURBUSINESS

To be blunt, we lack the representation that other orientations have. For example,I’m twenty-six, and I didn’t have half of the resources/ representation growing up that is available today. Which is why this year, in my twenty-sixth year of life, I am proud to have experienced more asexual media/representation than I ever have before.

Which ALSO is why I knew I needed to make a list for my own health and myself to show that there IS positive representation out there, and show those aces younger than me (and maybe even older than me, if you’ve been struggling with your sexuality or lack thereof as long as I have) that we exist, and we are not simply ‘freaks’ to be judged and chided.

Which is why.

I am proud to present.

THE GIGANTIC HUGE UBER LIST OF ACE RESOURCES [trumpets]

This includes a list of historical asexual/demisexuals, young adult literature/ resource books, cute merchandise, asexual books currently being released in 2019, and additional resources. ♥

( P.S: I also labeled these if they feature any sort of intersectionality, such as POC protagonists, bisexuality/lesbianism, or any intersectional aspects to try to give people the biggest and broadest representation within the asexual field we can. 

I also tried to include the literature that had the most positive representations and dispelled as much of the ‘myths’ about being asexual as possible, and presenting us as regular people in a strong powerful light, who just happen to be asexual. Some of these include dispelling myths around ‘YOU JUST HAVE TO TRY IT,’ ‘YOU’RE NOT REALLY QUEER,’ ‘THERE MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU,’ ‘YOU MUST HAVE EXPERIENCED ABUSE,’ ETC. Anything dealing with dispelling absolutes. For example, I was sexually abused when I was a child, but I now know that even though I could have issues with sexuality due to trauma, my asexuality/ demisexuality is completely separate from my past, and I am proud to come to that conclusion. I hope I can help others to come to that conclusion, too.)

Lastly, I also put my own comments in brackets besides copied book descriptions/ biographies if I had anything else to contribute; hopefully someone besides myself might find this helpful! ♥

Historical Asexuals/ Demisexuals:

Emily Brontë: Emily Brontë was a very private person and as such it’s impossible to be entirely certain of her sexual orientation. Some Brontë scholars believe she died a virgin, never having had physical relationships with men or women. However, most Brontë scholars think that the content of her novels would suggest she may have been asexual, but she was not aromantic.

J.M. Barrie: The man who wrote Peter Pan into existence, was reportedly asexual. His marriage was never consummated and ended in divorce when his wife cheated on him. Because of his relationship with his neighbor children, and the subject matter of his books, some speculated Barrie was prone to pedophilia. Those who knew him closely vehemently deny Barrie ever exhibited such behavior. Instead his lack of sexual relationships was more likely due to his asexuality. 

George Bernard Shaw: Renowned playwright George Bernard Shaw was a man far more interested in intellect than sex. He never consummated his marriage (also at the request of his wife, Charlotte Frances Payne-Townshend) and was a virgin until 29. Shaw told friends he appreciated the ability of sex to produce "a celestial flood of emotion and exaltation" but only as it compared to the "conscious intellectual activity" he strove for with his work.

Isaac Newton: Isaac Newton's supposed asexuality is based on his recorded behavior and lifestyle. He had strict religious views, never married, was obsessive in his scientific careers, and supposedly died a virgin. Whether he truly lacked sexual attraction or was simply too immersed in making massive scientific discoveries to have a sex life is unsure. 

T.E. Lawrence: Tragically, T.E. Lawrence – a man immortalized in the film Lawrence of Arabia – was sexually assaulted while held prisoner during The Great War. His lack of sexual and romantic relationships in life were mostly attributed to this trauma but some scholars argue he may have been asexual. He had no documented relationships with men or women. Most notably, since it was the turn of the 20th century, Lawrence was known to be non-judgmental of homosexuals. His personal orientation may have motivated his tolerance. 

Florence Nightingale: Interestingly, though "the Florence Nightingale effect" is a situation where a caregiver develops an attraction to the patient they are caring for, the effect's namesake, Florence Nightingale, was likely asexual. The famous nurse never married and instead chose to devote her life entirely to her work. She even refused a marriage proposal from a suitor who had been pursuing her for years. Nightingale rarely discussed her personal life and the term “asexual” was not widely used at the time, but asexual activists and scholars strongly suspect she lacked sexual interest.

Nikola Tesla: Nikola Tesla, the revolutionary engineer who was instrumental in the invention of electricity, also lived a life of celibacy typical of asexuals. He showed very little interest in sexual relationships throughout his life, preferring to focus on science. Many asexuals describe their lack of attraction as a blessing allowing them sharp focus. Once again, we have a person who could have been too busy (and brilliant) to focus on relationships, but who's asexuality likely allowed him to be busy (and brilliant). [Fun fact: I am actually related to ol’Nikola. Sometimes it’s nice to even think about someone in my family being asexual, because it makes me feel like we’d both be able to get along together when we get fixed in our little studies, research, and schemes ♥]

Frederic Chopin: Famed composer and pianist Frederic Chopin is supposed to also have been asexual. While he lived with writer George Sand, she noted in her biography that their connection was affectionate without being sexual. She described their affair as “eight years of maternal devotion," also noting, “He seemed to despise the courser side of human nature and...to fear to soil our love by further ecstasy.”Whether Chopin was uninterested in sex, or had reservations about consummating the relationship for other reasons, is unclear. Many scholars believe the famed pianist lacked sexual desire altogether.

John Ruskin: Victorian art critic John Ruskin was known to be particularly uninterested in sex. Though Ruskin was once married, he reportedly showed no interest in getting physical with his wife. Typical of other asexuals on this list, his marriage ended having never been consummated.

Cute Pins/ T-shirts/ Merch Representation:

Ace and Anxious Mug

Asexual Hearts Mug

Ace and Anxious Sweatshirt

Netflix and Actually Chilling Sweatshirt

World’s Okayest Grey Sexual Baseball Shirt

Ace Illuminati Pin 

Asexual Flag Pin

Asexual Pride Flag Pin

Asexuality ‘Nope’ T-Shirt

‘Space Ace’ Astronaut Pin

Asexual ‘I Am Valid’ Heart Sticker

LGBTA+ GameBoy Sticker

‘I Put the A in the LGBTA’ Shirt

Young Adult Fiction/ Books about Asexuality:

Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann: Alice's last girlfriend, Margo, ended things when Alice confessed she's asexual. Now Alice is sure she's done with dating... and then she meets Takumi. She can't stop thinking about him or the rom-com-grade romance feelings she did not ask for. When her blissful summer takes an unexpected turn and Takumi becomes her knight with a shiny library-employee badge, Alice has to decide if she's willing to risk their friendship for a love that might not be reciprocated-- or understood. [A bisexual POC protagonist; adorable fluffy, easy and sweet read].

All Out: The No-longer-secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages: Take a journey through time and genres and discover a past where queer figures live, love, and shape the world around them. Seventeen of the best young adult authors across the queer spectrum have come together to create a collection of beautifully written diverse historical fiction for teens. [This features several different types of queer stories, from transexual freedom fighters, but also a very sweet asexual love story set in a seventies roller rink with a POC protagonist].

The Pride Guide: A Guide to Sexual and Social Health for LGBTQ Youth by Jo Lanford: Jo Langford offers a complete guide to sexual and social development, safety, and health for LGBTQ youth and those who love and support them. Written from a practical perspective, the author explores the realities of teen sexuality, particularly that of trans teens, and provides guidance and understanding for parents and kids alike. [Although this is a little rudimentary, I found it a great resource even in my twenties for someone coming out, or to slowly but carefully come out to those who may be uncomfortable or not understand asexuality, or not see it as a valid sexuality or lack thereof].

Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Katie Ormsbee: Natasha 'Tash' Zelenka has found herself and her amateur web series plucked from obscurity and thrust in the limelight. And who wouldn't want fame and fortune? But along with the 40,000 new subscribers, the gushing tweets, and flashing Tumblr gifs, comes the pressure to deliver the best web series ever. As Tash struggles to combat the critics and her own doubts, she finds herself butting heads with her family and friends - the ones that helped make her show, Unhappy Families (a modern adaption of Anna Karenina, written by Tash's eternal love Leo Tolstoy), what it is today. And when Unhappy Families is nominated for a prestigious award, Tash's confusing cyber-flirtation with an Internet celeb suddenly has the potential to become something IRL if she can figure out how to tell him that she's a romantic asexual. But her new relationship creates tension with her friend Paul since he thought Tash wasn't interested in relationships ever. All Tash wants to think about is the upcoming award ceremony in Orlando, even though she'll have to face all the friends she steamrolled to get there. But isn't that just the price you pay for success?

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire: The story is set in a boarding school for teenagers who have passed through "doorways" into fantasy worlds only to be evicted back into the real world. It serves as something of a recovery center for boarders who find they no longer fit in, either in the "real" world or their own uncomprehending families. For a fortunate few it is just a way station until they can find their ways back to the worlds they do fit into; for others, it's the least bleak choice in what may be a life-long exile. This unhappy ending for the students takes a terrifying turn when some of their number start turning up dead. A small group joins together in an attempt to expose the person committing these murders before it is too late to save the school, or even themselves.

The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality by Julie Sondra Decker: What if you weren’t sexually attracted to anyone?A growing number of people are identifying as asexual. They aren’t sexually attracted to anyone, and they consider it a sexual orientation—like gay, straight, or bisexual.Asexuality is the invisible orientation. Most people believe that “everyone” wants sex, that “everyone” understands what it means to be attracted to other people, and that “everyone” wants to date and mate. But that’s where asexual people are left out—they don’t find other people sexually attractive, and if and when they say so, they are very rarely treated as though that’s okay.When an asexual person comes out, alarming reactions regularly follow; loved ones fear that an asexual person is sick, or psychologically warped, or suffering from abuse. Critics confront asexual people with accusations of following a fad, hiding homosexuality, or making excuses for romantic failures. And all of this contributes to a discouraging master narrative: there is no such thing as “asexual.” Being an asexual person is a lie or an illness, and it needs to be fixed.In The Invisible Orientation, Julie Sondra Decker outlines what asexuality is, counters misconceptions, provides resources, and puts asexual people’s experiences in context as they move through a very sexualized world. It includes information for asexual people to help understand their orientation and what it means for their relationships, as well as tips and facts for those who want to understand their asexual friends and loved ones [A good beginning place to start if you’re considering your asexuality. Also provides reassurances about the most common stereotypes concerning asexuality].

Young Adult Fiction/ Books about Asexuality Coming Out in 2019:

Switchback by Danika Stone: Vale loves to hike, but kind of hates her classmates. Ash is okay with his classmates, but kind of hates the outdoors. So, needless to say they are both fairly certain that the overnight nature hike with their PE class is going to be a hellish experience. But when they get separated from the group during a storm, they have worse things to worry about than bullies and blisters.Lost in the Canadian wilderness with limited supplies, caught in dangerous weather conditions, and surrounded by deadly wildlife, it's going to take every bit of strength, skill, and luck they can muster to survive.

Not Your Backup (Sidekick Squad #3) by C.B. Lee: Emma Robledo has a few more responsibilities that the usual high school senior, but then again, she and her friends have left school to lead a fractured Resistance movement against a corrupt Heroes League of Heroes. Emma is the only member of a supercharged team without powers, and she isn't always taken seriously. A natural leader, Emma is determined to win this battle, and when that's done, get back to school. As the Resistance moves to challenge the League, Emma realizes where her place is in this fight: at the front. [This is a third in a series, but the main character has recently come out as asexual at the end of the last book].

If It Makes You Happy by Claire Kann: Winnie is living her best fat girl life and is on her way to her favorite place—Misty Haven and her granny’s diner, Goldeen’s. With her family and ungirlfriend at her side, she has everything she needs for one last perfect summer before starting college in the fall.…until she becomes Misty Haven’s Summer Queen.Newly crowned, Winnie is forced to take center stage at a never-ending list of community royal engagements. Almost immediately, she discovers that she’s deathly afraid of it all: the spotlight, the obligations, and the way her Summer King wears his heart, humor, and honesty on his sleeve.To salvage her summer Winnie must conquer her fears, defy expectations, and be the best Winnie she knows she can be—regardless of what anyone else thinks of her. [Another POC protagonist and promises to be a cute summer read in the vein of Gilmore Girls. Claire Kann’s first book was the adorable ‘Lets Talk About Love’ which reads as an asexual rom-com. This also promises to be absolutely precious.].

Immoral Code by Lillian Clark: Ocean's 8 meets The Breakfast Club in this fast-paced, multi-perspective story about five teens determined to hack into one billionaire absentee father's company to steal tuition money.For Nari, aka Narioka Diane, aka hacker digital alter ego "d0l0s," it's college and then a career at "one of the big ones," like Google or Apple. Keagan, her sweet, sensitive boyfriend, is happy to follow her wherever she may lead. Reese is an ace/aro visual artist with plans to travel the world. Santiago is off to Stanford on a diving scholarship, with very real Olympic hopes. And Bellamy? Physics genius Bellamy is admitted to MIT--but the student loan she'd been counting on is denied when it turns out her estranged father--one Robert Foster--is loaded.  Nari isn't about to let her friend's dreams be squashed by a deadbeat billionaire, so she hatches a plan to steal just enough from Foster to allow Bellamy to achieve her goals. 

The Last Eight by Laura Pohl: Extinction was just the beginning in this thrilling, post-apocalyptic debut, perfect for fans of The 5th Wave series. Clover Martinez has always been a survivor, which is the reason she isn't among the dead when aliens invade and destroy Earth as she knows it.Clover is convinced she's the only one left until she hears a voice on the radio urging her to go to the former Area 51. When she arrives, she's greeted by a band of misfits who call themselves The Last Teenagers on Earth.Only they aren't the ragtag group of heroes Clover was expecting. The seven strangers seem more interested in pretending the world didn't end than fighting back, and Clover starts to wonder if she was better off alone. But when she finds a hidden spaceship within the walls of the compound, she doesn't know what to believe...or who to trust. [I’ve read there is also aromantic representation in this book too, so helpful for the Aros out there as well ♥]

LGBTA+ Comics with Possible Asexual Representation/ Influence:

Lumberjanes: At Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types, things are not what they seem. Three-eyed foxes. Secret caves. Anagrams. Luckily, Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are five rad, butt-kicking best pals determined to have an awesome summer together…and they’re not gonna let a magical quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way! [I LOVE THESE COMICS SO MUCH I SWEAR THEY’RE SO DAMN CUTE ♥]

The Backstagers: When Jory transfers to the private, all-boys school St. Genesius, he figures joining the stage crew would involve a lot of just fetching props and getting splinters. To his pleasant surprise, he discovers there’s a door backstage that leads to different worlds, and all of the stagehands know about it!All the world’s a stage…but what happens behind the curtain is pure magic!

Check, Please!: Check, Please! is written and drawn by Ngozi Ukazu. Eric Bittle—former Georgia junior figure skating champion, vlogger extraordinaire, and amateur pâtissier—is starting his freshman year playing hockey at the prestigious Samwell University in Samwell, Massachusetts. And it’s basically nothing like co-ed club hockey back in the South. For one? There’s checking.It’s a story about hockey and friendship and bros and trying to find yourself during the best 4 years of your life. [You can also read the cartoons online; it’s actually started by Tumblrite/ Yale Grad who is positively adorbs and I follow her on Instagram and I’m sort of obsessed with her/ it’s about hockey. CANADAAAAAAAA [x]]

And Lastly, Extra Online Resources For Asexuality:

UCLA LGBT Campus Resource Center: Asexuality

The Trevor Project on Asexuality

Campus Pride: Asexuality

The Canadian Centre for Gender Diversity and Awareness

Asexuality needs to be a recognized as its own, unique sexual orientation, Canadian experts say

Asexuality.org

Hopefully this helps! ♥♥♥

[landofsomethingsomething]

It’s so god damn easy to tear people down. People do it every day. It’s simple, it’s satisfying, it’s cathartic, it feels like balm to people who have been wronged, to people who have suffered, to people who have to live their lives outside this virtual space in fear and in real danger, in abusive households and abusive communities and situations that do not foster kindness, empathy, or the extension of good faith toward strangers. Being able to lash out safely from behind a screen at people that are safe to lash out at and who feel like a source of your continuing oppression -- that’s novel, at first. It’s invigorating. It’s freeing. The ability to be angry, to say angry things, to express your hurt and rage at any number of nameless or unnamable things is so fucking seductive it’s no wonder so many lgbt+ people have spent time in that place, have had periods of their lives where they engaged in this behavior and said what they wanted and lashed out without thought and allowed others so similar to them to enable their behavior. 

It’s so easy to find lgbt+ people who are in pain. To take these people who are in pain and to give them targets. To mold young people and your peers and take advantage of their trauma (so like your own!) and whip it up, normalize it within your group, foster it on any number of available platforms. Focus it on whoever you deem deserving at any given time. Actions speak louder than words. Context is irrelevant. Dialogue is weak. Abusers are abusers are abusers, except when you’re the abuser, because the abuse you have suffered justifies your actions. Your abuse makes you relatable. Your abuse is more important, more valid, more meaningful, more deserving of the care and empathy of others regardless of your coping mechanisms. 

It’s so damn fucking easy to just say whatever you want on the internet. It’s so easy to paint a group with whatever paintbrush you like, because no one fact checks, no one cares about context, no one concerns themselves with nuance, no one views the words on the screen in front of them as coming from another human being with an entirely separate lived history full of its own tragedy and triumph and biases and triggers and needs and understanding and hard fucking learned lessons. 

We separate into teams and look for ways to score points against the other side. We make ourselves willfully ignorant so we don’t have to switch sides, or even better, remove ourselves from the game entirely. We busy ourselves with tearing our enemies down with unattainable standards, ignore our own hypocrisy, and look to our side to tell us we’re right, we’re right, this time we are right and we will not be silenced and we will not be bullied and we will not let them win. 

Our actual abusers don’t see any of it. They don’t care. They go on living their lives. We take our rage and our pain and our frustration out in arenas we understand, in the places we feel safe, and the people we lash out at are the people who should be our friends, our allies, our brothers and sisters and nonbinary siblings who have suffered so much in a world that denies our sexuality, denies our gender, denies our expression, denies our right to exist. 

We know our abusers won’t listen. We know our pain is nothing to them, a drop in a bucket. So we hurt the people that can’t help but listen, because our stories are so alike. 

I went through an angry phase. I spent a few years screaming at people I felt deserved it, too. Some of them did and some of them didn’t, and doing so brought me short term satisfaction and a deep sense of power that I had not experienced anywhere else. A deep resonance with my own identity that I was powerless to exhibit anywhere in my real life, because family is complicated, friends are the choir and speaking up about microaggressions at work gets queer people fucking fired every fucking day, and you need that god damn money to eat. to live. to pay for your fucking brain pills. 

So. 

When you have a platform and a fandom and you feel that thrill of being heard, finally -- I get it. 

But here’s the thing. 

Your abuse never justifies levying abuse on others, strangers, people whose context you do not know and whose stories you have not heard. 

Your emotions are valid. You are free to feel however you like. If you need to vent in private, among friends and colleagues and people you feel safe with, by all means. 

Your favorite characters and your favorite ships and your favorite relationships and your fanfiction and your fanart may be how you express yourself or vent or cope. Your Shit means different things to different people, and to some, it means nothing at all. Let it fucking go. Your shit is not the bar of lived experience other people in fandom must meet to be considered sufficiently oppressed to spare them your bullying. 

Your trigger and your context and your trauma is your own. It does not belong to anyone else. It is your responsibility to understand your limits and respect the rights of other creators, just as it is the responsibility of creators to properly tag and label their work to spare those whom it might upset the indignity of reliving their trauma within a space that is supposed to be safe for them. A space that for some may be the only safe space they have. A space that for some may be the only escape available to them. A space that, for some, may be the only way they can begin to express themselves, furtively, in stolen moments in an oppressive environment. 

Fandom is where so many of us found ourselves. It’s full of us, lgbt+ people in various life stages, expressing ourselves in communities dedicated to content that made us feel enough to find ourselves here in the first place. It’s where children currently are discovering labels for feelings they have never had the words to talk about before. It’s where adults go in the midst of their busy lives to contribute to a body of work motivated by nothing but emotion for the source, for the community, and/or for the hope of encouraging feedback from their peers, their fans, their heroes, all three. It’s where everyone goes and discovers there are people out there just like them, after all. 

It’s where people are picking their teams and suiting up and getting in line and hurting people just like them, every day. 

It’s where people are putting the feelings and wellbeing and sanctity and rights of fictional characters over those of actual human beings who committed the grave sin of enjoying a thing a different way, or for different reasons.

Fandom is full of amazing connection and moments I wouldn’t trade for the world. I wouldn’t be married to my amazing wife right now without it. But it’s also a battlefield in a bubble where I watch oppressed people tear each other apart every single day, while of course, in the meantime, outside the filmy fucking boundary between this world and the real one, the same privileged sorts continue to dominate every aspect of mainstream media, the white house is full of incompetent, hateful people, some of whom are literal nazis, white nationalists feel safe enough to wear swastikas on public transit in liberal epicenters, gay men in russia are being sent to death camps, the police are murdering people of color indiscriminately without fear of personal or professional consequence, the supreme court is one death or retirement away from setting back civil rights in the united states a century, trans people have to watch a nation of frightened pissbabies scream about the sanctity of public bathrooms while they themselves suffer from an increased rate of being literally fucking murdered simply for existing, gay teenagers ostracized from conservative families sleep homeless in the street with winter fast approaching, hurricanes devastate a dozen nations because this century has paved a political landscape where corporate profits prevail over basic human rights  -- and you know what, fuck it, let’s make it a little personal -- 

half my family has never acknowledged the fact that I have been married for a year because they don’t believe it is a legitimate marriage because I and my wife are both women, my wife and I went to the hairdresser the other day and when we checked in with the same last name we were asked if we were sisters (and upon clarifying, the woman who was to cut our hair loudly and incredulously gasped, “is that legal here?”), one of my best friends, a woman I have known since high school (that’s 17 years ago, for those keeping count) was told she would have to undergo a thorough and lengthy process via working with HR, her boss and the owner of her company before she could represent herself as her correct gender at work - and even after she jumped through all those hoops, she was told she was absolutely not allowed to use the women’s restroom under any circumstances - When I told my father about my engagement, he tearfully turned to me and said “but you’re supposed to marry a guy, and have babies” - and because this was my father, who I have always had a good relationship with despite remaining closeted most of my life, who I have always and still deeply love despite the shit that comes out of his mouth sometimes, who worked 12 hour days in construction to support me after divorcing my mother when he was nineteen years old - I actually fucking felt guilty. 

The memory of how I felt in that moment will follow me until I fucking die, and when I log on to this website at the end of the day and just want to fucking relax and spend time yammering about things I like with people who like those same things, when I just want to spend time in this space that makes me feel good, when I just want to create content for the joy of creating it and the joy of seeing others enjoy the thing I created -- the fucking last thing I want is to see myself, my wife, my close friends and fandom friends alike being put on blast by petty people leveraging a nebulous, ever-changing definition of purity, backed by a group of people I know have suffered and hurt and feel justified hurting others because of it. 

Fandom is where we go to escape the hellish fucking bullshit that is reality, for fuck’s sake.

I don’t fucking care who hurt you. Visiting pain upon others in the aftermath is your choice. Bullying others because a group of impressionable, hurting people looking for a leader will follow you into the trenches here on a battlefield where we should all fucking know better is your choice. 

Your feelings aren’t always your choice. That’s fair.

The way you choose to express and react to and process and deal with those feelings IS your choice.

Your actions are your choice.

So try to be kind. Try to be empathetic. Understand your feelings and understand when you are being manipulated and for god’s sake, when other queer people come out in droves to tell their stories, try to think critically, even if they are on the other “team.” Block content that upsets you. Use tools available to you to keep yourself safe! Blacklist tags. Blacklist URLs. Block people. Be frank about your triggers if you are able and try to give people the benefit of the doubt -- and if you can’t, put space between you and them, and then use the myriad of tools available to you to put a wall in that space. 

I know all about the kind of catharsis that comes from being a “mean gay.” I know all about constructing a set of rules within a group and then judging others outside that group by that context and punishing them when they fail purity tests they knew nothing about. I know all about fighting disrespect with disrespect and anger with anger and logging out at the end of the day to go cry -- not because I was sad, but because I was so fucking angry I couldn’t process the emotion any other way. 

I also know all about walking away from that life, that toxicity. I know about taking a break. I know about reading, a lot, for months and years, about experiences both like and very much unlike my own. I know about resolving to be better. I know about cutting out the people who made me worse, and keeping the people who encouraged me to be better. 

I know how much my life improved when I endeavored to keep my venting and negativity among friends who could actually support me, in places where I couldn’t hurt anyone, and present a positive force to the public, instead. To lift up the things I like and to block and move on with the things I don’t. To let creators have their space and their platform here in this one place where we can each carve out some small part for ourselves and feel like we are in control for once in our fucking lives. I know I stopped crying so much. I know my hobbies stopped making me so angry, all the time. I know that the only times I have been truly, deeply upset in my time in this fandom have been when I have been targeted or those I care about have been targeted. 

I know how fucking hard it is to tear yourself away. 

I know how fucking worth it it is. 

Take care of yourselves. 

[prettyboychik]

Ok got around to it. People have said all these things in a much better way than I ever could, but I might as well still say it.

transmisogyny is about how transphobia and misogyny intersect with eachother and effectively dehumanise trans women (E.G. theyre not seen as real women by transphobes because of their bodies "Women dont have penises!", and theyre not seen as real men by transphobes because theyre feminine "Men must be strong not prissy girls!")

Agreed! And that’s really shitty!

trans women are categorised as fetishistic nonhuman freaks, they 'corrupt womanhood' and 'fail at masculinity', theyre literally ostracised from all genders!!

Oof yeah I get that, been there and it sucks.

as transmasc people, we arent dehumanised in the same way.

Of course we aren’t dehumanized in the exact same way. We are, however, dehumanized in general and dehumanized in some similar/comparable ways.

we are both MINUTELY respected for wanting to be men (keyword; MINUTELY, thats why tomboyish girls are more acceptable to transphobes than feminine boys -- 'masculinity is best', even when its women doing it) and seen as confused women.

I have never been respected for “wanting to be a man”, not even minutely. Tomboys are seen as confused women, that doesn’t mean they are accepted. Being seen as “too dumb to know better” isn’t acceptance.

this ^^ is how i understood that transandrophobia is wrong.

You’re right, transandrophobia is wrong! Talking about it, however, is not.

transmisogyny specifies how trans women are dehumanised and ostracised, while trans men arent dehumanised, we are just discriminated against.

We are dehumanized. Read even just the wikipedia page for Abigail Shrier’s “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” and try to explain to me how that book isn’t completely dehumanizing. Any trans man that can’t be seen as a “poor confused little girl” (which is dehumanizing) is seen as an evil , twisted, testosterone-poisoned monster out to get your innocent little daughters.

we are ""still women, just stupid wrong ones."" its transphobic but not dehumanisation, because transphobes dont understand how woman can be trivialised and obviously since we were born with vaginas we are women!! /sarc /neg

See above. That is dehumanizing, and not all of us are seen as “stupid wrong women”.

anyways, i hope you can read this and understand. i was upset at why trans people were against transandrophobia, but not transmisogyny, but i talked to transfem people and got educated

Glad you talked to people. While trans women face serious discrimination, they do not speak for the entire trans community and its quite honestly unfair to everyone (including them) to make them the arbiters of “what the Trans Community ™ can talk about”. You wouldn’t ask a person with ADHD if we are allowed to talk about issues pertaining to autistic people, even though both groups (which I am a part of) are in the broader ND community.

its not a matter of being LESS discriminated against, its a matter of the type of discrimination.

Yes, and that is why we made a term for it. So we can talk about this type of discrimination. The push to silence trans men isn’t from a place of “your oppression is different” it is absolutely from a place of “your oppression isn’t important and should not be talked about”. If it was only about how our oppression is different, you’d think everybody would be fine with us talking about it in our own spaces with our own terms.

transmisogyny is a separate word because it intersects misogyny and transphobia -- misandry/androphobia is not a huge issue in cissociety

Transandrophobia is a separate word because it intersects transphobia and misandry/androphobia. Misandry/androphobia may not be a huge issue, but that doesn’t mean its not an issue. Misandry is especially an issue when it intersects with other identities like race, disability, and queerness.

And before anyone comes at me about misandry / male-specific issues not being a thing, try listening with an open mind to men that are discussing this subject in good faith. Reddit can be an absolute cesspit at times, but theres some good conversations happening over in r/MensLib.

anon because im shy lmao, ill totally DM if you have questions or want more info

I don’t have any questions. It’s the same arguments I’ve heard time and time again. I’ll give you the advice I wish someone had given me when I was in your shoes. Maybe it won’t resonate with you, but I hope it at least helps someone.

Log off. Step back from activism. Step back from spaces dedicated to social justice. Make friends with people that will respect and support you even when you disagree. Who will talk to you and try to understand your point of view instead of immediately shutting you down. Practice forming your own opinions on issues instead of just automatically taking the position that is deemed the most “morally pure” by the people around you. Practice being able to respectfully disagree with people and stand your ground. Respect yourself enough to let yourself have a voice. You’re allowed to have your own opinion and to disagree with people.

as a transmasc person transandrophobia doesnt exist and its transmisogynistic to say such!!! explanation below 👇

transmisogyny is about how transphobia and misogyny intersect with eachother and effectively dehumanise trans women (E.G. theyre not seen as real women by transphobes because of their bodies "Women dont have penises!", and theyre not seen as real men by transphobes because theyre feminine "Men must be strong not prissy girls!")

trans women are categorised as fetishistic nonhuman freaks, they 'corrupt womanhood' and 'fail at masculinity', theyre literally ostracised from all genders!!

as transmasc people, we arent dehumanised in the same way. we are both MINUTELY respected for wanting to be men (keyword; MINUTELY, thats why tomboyish girls are more acceptable to transphobes than feminine boys -- 'masculinity is best', even when its women doing it) and seen as confused women.

this ^^ is how i understood that transandrophobia is wrong. transmisogyny specifies how trans women are dehumanised and ostracised, while trans men arent dehumanised, we are just discriminated against. we are ""still women, just stupid wrong ones."" its transphobic but not dehumanisation, because transphobes dont understand how woman can be trivialised and obviously since we were born with vaginas we are women!! /sarc /neg

anyways, i hope you can read this and understand. i was upset at why trans people were against transandrophobia, but not transmisogyny, but i talked to transfem people and got educated -- its not a matter of being LESS discriminated against, its a matter of the type of discrimination. transmisogyny is a separate word because it intersects misogyny and transphobia -- misandry/androphobia is not a huge issue in cissociety

anon because im shy lmao, ill totally DM if you have questions or want more info

gonna get back to this later bc i’ve been meaning to talk abt transandrophobia more.

this is very likely a copy-pasted message that you just sent to everyone on the transandrophobia truther blocklist, as i haven’t actually talked about transandrophobia or been on tumblr regularly in months. but i do intent to fully answer in a bit anyways.

Something for you to consider though: why can’t we talk about both transandrophobia and transmisogyny? Discussion of one does not take away from discussion of the other.

And as a quick note: Anon I get it. I’ve been in the headspace you are. I full on detransitioned and recloseted myself. Making yourself & your issues smaller and quieter isn’t going to make “progressive” groups/spaces/people accept you, it just makes them tolerate you as “one of the good ones”.

[yak-leather-whips]

What do you believe distinguishes you from other females to the point you must identify as genderfluid? What makes you want to construct more gender identities than be yourself?

Great question! It’s a little hard to respond to, because I don’t think that’s necessarily an accurate way to phrase it. I haven’t constructed any additional identity, because I’ve been genderfluid since I’ve had a concept of gender. I’m simply using the word that described my experiences. Genderfluid is a label I applied to a thing I always was, just like lesbian. I didn’t “construct” my lesbian identity. I am attracted exclusively to women including trans women and non-binary women, so I’m a lesbian. That’s what that word means, so it’s the word I use. My gender identity fluctuates to a point that there is a noticeable difference to both myself and those around me. The term to describe that is genderfluid, so that’s the term I use. I’m a firm believer in descriptive identity, not prescriptive. I use the words that fit my experience, I don’t fit my experiences to the words.

What distinguishes me from other females? The fact that I am an individual of my own mind and body which is both separate from and influenced by the society and other people which surround me. There isn’t a universal idea among trans people about what makes someone the gender they are, but my current understanding is that gender is constructed by our brains internal categorization mechanism. Our brains spend our entire lives categorizing the world into “me” and “not me.” I usually call this in-group out-group mentality, which isn’t what that term means, but it’s close enough and I don’t remember what it’s actually called. Individuation or something along those lines. Anywho.

Gender is an artifact of that tendency. It’s used to help us categorize where we fit in with the people around us. They help us categorize how we relate to other people, whether they are “like us” or “not like us.” These categorizations happen in our brains and are a reflection of a socially constructed identity, but that socially constructed identity is reflected in a genuinely ingrained psychological reality. Something can be both socially constructed and have real neurological reinforcement.

I also think gender can be a useful construct. It can help us find people with similar experiences to our own and help us identify areas where different perspectives may be needed. I honestly think an abolition of gender would do more to advance sex-based oppression than anything else, as it would likely be abused by cis-men as a way of saying “look, everybody’s equal now, and if we’re all equal, you don’t need special protections.” As such, while I agree with the idea that gender as currently understood by our species is a harmful power dynamic used to reinforce an unjust hierarchy, I feel the best approach to changing that is a postmodern one rather than an abolitionist one. To realize the ways that we construct these things within ourselves and each other, and choose to construct them differently.

Ok, now that I’ve gotten that little rant out of the way, what makes me feel like I’m genderfluid? A lot of things. The way I can go from fine with myself and comfortable in a dress one day, bouncing and twirling and absolutely in love with my beautiful figure, and the next day I can wear that same dress, look in the mirror, and feel physically sick with anxiety, which is then immediately solved by putting on more androgynous clothing. The fact that my entire life I’ve looked at photos of myself and felt no connection to the person in the photo. The fact that I can look in the mirror on my way into the bathroom and see myself and look on the way out and see a stranger.

Put another way...I’ve never been quite sure whether I actually existed. I never developed a proper theory of mind or individuated to any real extent. I saw myself as merely an object for others to act out their agency through, rather than an agent of my own. I became involved in theater at an early age, and for me, all the world truly was a stage. My life felt simply like an all encompassing performance, and the curtain isn’t coming so you’d better make the audience laugh or you’re on the hook.

As a teenager I read a bit about agency via feminist theory, but I always felt...disconnected from it. I heard all these people telling all their stories and talking about liberation and becoming agents in the world, but I felt the same way about it as I would about critical race theory: something that applied to me, but wasn’t really FOR me. I didn’t see myself as a person, let alone a woman, so all that talk about liberation wasn’t really for me, but rather, it was something I could do for others. I was still conceptualizing myself via what I could do for others. I wasn’t an agent.

Transness (along with a LOT of therapy) bridged that gap. It didn’t just connect the dots on my gender, it helped me connect with my humanity. All of the sudden, I was a person who existed in the real world, not just a character in a show I could never end. Suddenly the feminist theory I’d been reading for years wasn’t just about an abstract idea of women and men, it was about me and the people I knew. Suddenly I wasn’t just an extension of whoever I happened to be mirroring at the moment, I was a person who could exist in relation to others. And that relationship changed, even just with the same people, and the key part is: I still existed when that relationship changed. I felt differently about who I was in relation to others at different moments, but there was still a me to feel that way, and that me was the same me I was yesterday. My gender had changed, but I was still me. I was an ocean, and while the tides may go in and the tides may go out, the ocean remains.

Transness has brought me closer to my femininity, and to feminism. For the first time I felt like a woman, because for the first time I felt like a PERSON. For the first time in my life, I feel like the advocacy that all these amazing women have done wasn’t separate from me. The theory these people spoke about wasn’t something I could give to everyone else. I was a part of this movement. I was a part of womanhood. I was a part of humanity.

So yeah, that’s how I see my genderfluidity. Not constructed, but a facet of my humanity that was a necessary part of my individuation. Not sure if that answers your question, but I’ve always been somewhat of a rambler.

[colmenerodwyane96]

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[caden]

Are you being serious about the biphobia thing? There are a lot of people who specifically dislike bisexuals because they're stereotyped as being promiscuous, cheaters, lying about their sexuality bc they're desperate for attention, or are just "confused" and "eventually pick a side." That kind of discrimination doesn't stem from homophobia, it's completely different. Unless you were being sarcastic then my bad

Some of this might come out sounding hostile, but that’s genuinely not my intention at all: 

Im not being sarcastic, though i deleted that other post because the wording was clearly confusing. Prejudice against bisexual people obviously exists within the LGBT community, although I don’t believe it’s as pervasive or serious an issue in the community as lesbophobia or transphobia. That post was specifically referring to another post, in which someone said it was ‘biphobia’ to point out that: “there’s no systematic power structure or actually influential societal movement that keeps bisexual men from dating women”. 

THEY were referencing another post which had pointed that out, and said that in reality the systems of oppression are encouraging men to date women. I was trying to additionally point out that those systems are rooted in homophobia, not ‘biphobia’. As a bi person, I can concretely point to the ways i’ve been systematically and socially hurt because of my sexuality, and none of them have to do with biphobia. They’re the result of a broader hate held by society for gay people. The ‘straight’ half of my sexuality has never come under any scrutiny– therefore, I don’t see the point in making a distinction between ‘biphobia’ and straight up ‘homophobia’ in this context. Hopefully that makes sense. 

And, yes, in a much much much more macroscopic sense i’ve had experience with people who hold prejudices about what it means to be bi. These experiences are almost entirely limited to very niche groups in small corners of the internet. the real life ignorant assholes that i know who might hold beliefs like these have never expressed them to me– because they care a lot more about me being gay than me being ‘bi’. meaning– I’ve never encountered someone who, after being told i was bi, said “wow. you must be confused, you’ll pick a side eventually”. I have encountered many people who said “gay sex is a sin, and you’re going to hell”. I’m not saying that the first type of person doesn’t exist, or that we can only observe one type of prejudice at one time– just that any theoretical ‘biphobia’ people might express still falls under the blanket category of ‘homophobia’. 

Once we start to really differentiate and act like biphobia is a different kind of homophobia instead of a result/subset of it, especially in communities like tumblr, we get bisexual people talking over lesbians, trans folks, etc, we get complex identity politics where people are non-ironically saying “let bisexual boys date women” as if anyone is actually stopping them– essentially, we get bi people acting as if biphobia is a systematic or social problem on par with homophobia or transphobia. “Biphobia”, by your definition, is as far as I can tell entirely just the prejudice that bi people face. And way way way too often, I’ve seen it used as an excuse that we use to force ourselves into discussions or places where we don’t belong, or shut down other people’s voices. And, of course, it carries an innate element of having to pretend any bi people anywhere are in any way oppressed for loving the opposite gender– or saying that an opposite gender relationship between two cis people is somehow ‘queer’ 

Note: Queer is a word that, as a bi dude, i feel really uncomfortable using when describing myself. Partially because of the fact that it’s been used against me as a slur, partially despite that fact, if that makes sense. It has a very very complicated history and complicated connotations that I (a cis bi man) have no right to Reclaim. 

TLDR: I think of biphobia as a very small facet of homophobia, which is a much much broader issue with much more consequential implications. “Biphobia”, under this definition, carries no inherent oppression– just individual prejudice. Thinking about biphobia as if it is a separate form of oppression or equating it to other issues in the LGBT community is shortsighted and dangerous. 

There are other people who can explain this much more sensitively and eloquently than I just did, and I’m probably skimming over many of the arguments that I could be making here out of general ignorance on the topic. If one of my more well-versed mutuals or followers wants to contribute that would be really appreciated.